Official Report 628KB pdf
Agenda item 3 is the Scottish Government’s draft budget for 2015-16. Today we will take evidence on the theme of forestry. The committee will hold further evidence sessions on the draft budget with stakeholders on the theme of the Scotland rural development programme and then with the Minister for Environment and Climate Change and the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment.
We welcome our witnesses: Jamie Farquhar is Scotland national manager for Confor; Willie McGhee is founder member and management committee member of the forest policy group; Jo O’Hara is deputy director of the Forestry Commission Scotland, the Scottish Government; Nigel Miller is president of the National Farmers Union Scotland; and Jim Colchester is the head of forestry at Buccleuch Estates.
We have had a long session on wildlife crime, which is somewhat related to what the Forestry Commission Scotland has to deal with, but we now want to deal with the budget. You do not all have to answer every question; if you did so, we might have to suspend the rules of the Parliament.
I will kick off with a general question. What do the witnesses think about the overall level of Forestry Commission funding in the draft budget? I presume that we should ask people other than the Forestry Commission representative first.
While we feel that the budget level will do the job for 2015-16, the forest policy group believes that it should be set higher. In my written submission, I put a figure of £45 million for the grants alone, and I would like to see it higher than that, possibly at £60 million. Because of its weighting in rural development and contribution to the rural sector, forestry deserves more money. For the record, I would like it to be more fully integrated with agriculture in the way that it is handled.
Having read the other submissions, I can see exactly where Willie McGhee is coming from. All sectors would like to see more money and there are certainly strands of expenditure that look as if they are quite difficult. Given the overall package that we are looking at and the fact that there are some significant cuts in other areas, at this stage big increases can only come at the expense of other sectors and are therefore very difficult. In many ways, we are in that ghastly world where it is a matter of prioritising and having to compromise.
The Scottish Government is supporting our sector extremely well overall with a budget of £60 million to £65 million. The sector is very successful and it delivers to virtually every agenda that the Government sets us. However, there is some fairly radical disparity in the way in which that £65 million is disbursed.
We have said and continue to argue for the authority of the Forestry Commission to be maintained and for it to retain its autonomy as the forest authority. We have always supported the money that the Forestry Commission requires to retain its expertise and deal with a very complicated tactical industry.
Where the budget fails is in the expectation on the private sector to deliver virtually all the new planting targets. I echo Willie McGhee’s comments that straightforward maths shows that £30 million or £36 million will not be sufficient for that. At the end of the day, of the £36 million going into the private sector, the Scottish Government is putting up only £16 million because the rest comes from European Union co-funding. Chairman, you have heard me say in this company before that that is a pretty pathetic sum of money to commit to such a successful sector.
I am the convener, not the chairman.
We are happy to accept the terms that you state at the moment. I should ask Jo O’Hara to respond to a supplementary. We are thinking about the money for this year, but has the Forestry Commission spent all the money from last year?
When you say “last year”, do you mean the year that we are in or do you mean 2012-13?
I mean the year that we are in or the year before that. Was the total budget allocation spent?
Yes, it was. We have our allocations for the grants, for our work as a department and for the national forest estate. Therefore, we have three very different headers within our budget and sometimes we move between them depending on what happens during the year. However, we did spend the money.
To come back to the question of grants, I take Jamie Farquhar’s point and we have been discussing that actively with the sector through our customer reps group. Bearing in mind that this is a one-year budget, so far we have not rejected new planting proposals because there has not been enough money. We have been able to meet demand with the money that has been available, but those proposals have not met the target of 10,000 hectares.
We are particularly concerned about increasing the amount of productive woodland, which is a challenge for us. However, we feel that, on balance, given what we have put in for the year ahead and given what we know, from discussions with the sector and through some of the initial conversations that we have had, is coming through the pipeline, the figure that we have in the budget for next year should meet the demand for new planting. There is no question but that, if that demand suddenly increased, the amount of money in the budget could hit the buffers at some point. However, knowing where we are at, we think that the allocation for next year is fair.
12:00
I call Jamie Farquhar. The microphones are operated centrally. We know when to cut you off—but not yet.
We have spent all our money in 2014, and we have been lucky enough to get some extra euros out of the 2007-2013 programme that were unallocated at the end of the programme. We spent about £41 million—is that correct?
Yes, it was £41 million.
The unfortunate side of our business is the time and money that has to be invested in bringing forward new planting schemes. On average, it takes 18 to 24 months to bring those schemes through scoping and consultation. That is just a fact of life nowadays. Every now and then, we complain about the amount of time that it takes but we understand that that is the reality in practice.
Going back 18 months to two years, the message was quite clear: 2014 will be a transition year and we do not know when the grant will be available again, so we will not be able to award contracts. The sensible agent, on behalf of his client, simply sat back and got on with other business. It is an unfortunate cycle that we have to follow because of the seven-year rural development programme, which produces peaks and troughs, and the number of schemes that are likely to come through in 2016 has fallen short of the target as a result.
I echo Jamie Farquhar’s point. We have been active in this role, and we have schemes in relation to which we took a risk. We looked at the risk of not getting a contract at the right time—we have to purchase the trees well in advance of when we need them because they have to be grown.
The complications of the SRDP1 meant that the scheme was not really fit for what it was trying to deliver. The new scheme will be better because the Forestry Commission has taken on board a lot of what we recommended, and the scheme will be designed to be fit for purpose. However, there was a considerable risk for those who were trying to undertake new planting, and in many cases it was decided to delay planting schemes.
There is quite a lot of latent demand to undertake new planting and, with the changes in the subsidies that you are talking about, the land that is probably ideally suited to productive forestry will start to become more economically viable for forestry as we move towards 2016 to 2019. There is, therefore, a chance that the productive element will not be front loaded in the next SRDP but will come towards the end of it. That is probably better for all parties, because we will be able to go in and design it properly.
As Nigel Miller has said, tight budgets have been imposed on us, and we hope that the minister is providing you with the best opportunity possible. Several members want to ask questions about that. Perhaps Willie McGhee can incorporate his answers to some of those questions into his response to Nigel Miller.
Both Jamie Farquhar and Willie McGhee have suggested that there is a need for an enhanced budget. From where else in the overall rural pot could or should that money be derived? I am sure that Nigel Miller would say that his organisation could justify asking for more.
That ties in with my response to Nigel Miller. When I talk about forestry, woodlands and trees, perhaps I need to be a bit more explicit. What Jim Colchester, Jamie Farquhar and, to a lesser extent, Jo O’Hara are talking about is blanket afforestation—taking a piece of land and covering it with trees. However, we have worked with farmers in the south of Scotland—one of them is sitting two seats down from Graeme Dey—on a pioneering scheme to put parkland trees into the Scottish landscape at a low density. The farmers benefit directly from such a scheme by receiving the funding.
That brings me to Nigel Miller’s point about reallocation. I make a plea not to take money away from farmers necessarily but to move it around and to target it at farmers. Rather than ask them to sell huge chunks of land, the Government should ask them to create upland parkland that puts trees in the landscape but is not the commercial forestry that Jim Colchester and Jamie Farquhar are talking about. It is a different way of looking at how forestry and woodlands integrate with agriculture in Scotland.
Jim Hume may want to follow that up, having declared an interest.
Yes. I was a trustee of Borders Forest Trust, along with Willie McGhee, many moons ago, and I was involved in some of the innovation that has been continued.
Willie’s response touched on the question that I was about to ask, on integration. Rather than have the old farming versus forestry argument, it would be interesting to hear about innovative ideas that could see forestry as a crop rather than a competitor to farming. Given that a vast area of Scottish farmland is tenanted, that crop could be seen as a tenant’s improvement rather than as something that only landlords plant and which takes away good sheep-grazing land. What are the panel’s views on that?
I think that you know my views on that.
The rest of us do not.
Maybe you can tell us.
Exactly. It would be handy to have your views on the record.
I think that not enough effort is made to get foresters and upland hill farmers working together, as Jim Hume says, to put trees into the landscape. We had a subsidised scheme whereby farmers received the money, the materials and the assistance to put the trees into the landscape so that they improved upland pastures.
I agree with Jim Hume’s point about the need to work with tenants where there are new or existing areas of woodland. We are talking about benefiting farmers. If they worked in shelter belts or new areas of woodland, they would be able to add diversity to their income in a way that would make them more resilient to changes in livestock prices and agricultural subsidies. That is my tuppence-worth.
I can only be supportive of that view. There has been a conflict between agriculture and forestry over the past few years, and I have been guilty of being involved in that. We just do not have enough land, and the 10,000 hectares target seems to threaten the critical mass of Scottish agriculture. That tension exists, but we must be smart and look at ways of meeting the target that allow us to work together. Willie McGhee has given us a good example.
At the moment, there are some outstanding priorities. I understand the real driver for forestry to be not only our climate change targets but the need to maintain the critical mass of commercial forestry in order to maintain the jobs in the industry.
We need to look more imaginatively at restocking and commercial forestry so that we get greater biodiversity benefits, because, unless we increase the planting rate, there will be more and more pressure on our limited land mass. We need to get multifunctional solutions. Willie McGhee mentioned upland farming where there can be grazing on open woodland, but we must look at commercial forestry so that we are also in the fringes or the glades and producing the biodiversity benefits that everyone wants. In that way, we might have a solution to juggle a tight land mass into the benefits that we all need, within the budgets.
Confor made the point that there was a limited budget for restocking, and it called for a more imaginative restructuring of our plantings. To me that is one of the priorities: can we do that better to get multiple benefits?
Another basic issue is plant health and research, for which there is a flat budget. We seem to be facing a minor crisis as far as tree diseases go. That is perhaps climate change driven, but the reality is that, unless we crack that, the whole sector is under threat. Therefore, at this point, it would make sense to prioritise spending in order to push back those threats.
We will be taking up those issues with the minister; we will also be following up issues about the Forestry Commission’s acquisition and disposal policy later in the parliamentary session.
Do you have any follow-up questions, Jim?
The question that I just asked was going to be my supplementary, so I will do things backwards and now ask my core question.
There is a planting target of 10,000 hectares a year, which we have not reached for about 12 years. If we go back 40 years, we are only planting about a fifth of what we used to plant in those days. We have climate change mitigation targets, which are being missed, too. What effect is missing the planting targets having on our climate change mitigation targets?
Who wants to answer? No one.
That is fine.
Good; we can move on then. I see that Jamie Farquhar has something to say.
I think that I am going to offer Nigel Miller a job in Confor—
He will be looking for one soon. [Laughter.]
—because I applaud a lot of the statements that he made.
This is becoming far too incestuous.
However, Nigel is guilty of having a short memory in relation to the delightful woodland expansion advisory group—WEAG—process that has gone on over the past several years.
First, the Forestry Commission is doing an exceptionally good job in raising awareness in the farming fraternity by virtue of a series of workshops and seminars on wood fuel. Making farmers and other landowners aware of the asset on which they sit is a given. That integration is going on and we fully support it.
I say this with no disrespect to Willie McGhee’s wishes for parkland-type landscape—Scotland is lucky and has a lot of that, particularly in some of the finest managed lands in south-west Scotland in places such as Drumlanrig, where there has been integrated land use for a long time—but if we want to meet our climate change carbon targets, we need to plant productive conifers in this part of the world. That would be the quickest way to meet the targets.
That is why the headline planting target figures is so wrong. As Jo O’Hara said, we have a problem in failing to meet the productive conifer element of the target—in the past two years, we are some 9,000 hectares behind.
To return to my original point, Mr Farquhar, have you identified where the additional sums of money that you are looking for might come from, or do you simply feel justified in asking for more?
12:15
I am afraid that I do not have the information with me—I am happy to send it to you—but I did cover this point in the spring. From memory, when we were talking about the common agricultural policy and SRDP, Confor highlighted somewhere in the region of £40 million that is going to several different programme funding streams within SRDP. In our submission, those programmes could have been given either lower priorities or lower allocations—or, indeed, they could have been funded from other streams outwith SRDP.
I will finish my question about climate change mitigation and the planting targets. Some witnesses want more trees to be planted, but there is another conflict, which relates not just to our history of farming versus forestry but to peat-based soils versus mineral-based soils. There are views that planting in peat-based soils, of which there are many in Scotland, releases a lot of carbon into the air, so it may take more than the life of the tree to sequester that carbon. Does anyone have anything to add on that?
Having had the great fortune to be involved in the trees and carbon business for the past 15 years, I have two thoughts. First, on not meeting the targets, I have just done a back-of-the-envelope calculation. Please do not take this as gospel but, if we miss the targets by 5,000 hectares per annum and we take a very conservative average of about 50 tonnes of CO2 per hectare, we will be about 250,000 tonnes per annum down on the target. That is a guess, because that is taking an average over a forest’s life.
Secondly, on peaty soils, Jo O’Hara will say her own thing about Forestry Commission guidance on planting on peats and planting on deep peats, which should not happen. If we plant on shallow peats such as peaty gleys, which are the borders, we will get an initial release of carbon dioxide from the soils. That will take us through to 10 years, when we get canopy closure in the forest. Thereafter, work by the centre for ecology and hydrology, by the University of Edinburgh and by others has shown convincingly that the forest becomes a positive contributor. The question would also apply to deep peats and I am not going to go there.
To clarify this for all of us, what is the equation if trees are in the ground for longer? As you said, after 10 years on shallow peat, they will become a sink. If parkland trees or shelter belts are planted, farms are involved, and they are looking for a crop. However, broad-leaves and native woodlands are in the ground for a lot longer, so do they sequester more than is sequestered over the 40-year cycle or whatever it is for commercial forests?
Jamie Farquhar is shaking his head. The answer is yes and no. I will explain quickly.
A native woodland in poor upland soils will take a lot longer to sequester the CO2 from the atmosphere than a fast-growing Sitka spruce block will. However, you are correct—when we remove the Sitka spruce block after 40 years, we have emissions, not only because we have removed the timber but because we have disturbed the soils. A long-established, slow-growing native woodland is a steadier sink of uptake in greenhouse gas whereas, with a conifer crop, there may be a failure to restock or patchy restocking, or something else might happen that means that it is less efficient over the long term.
We will look forward to some references to that, perhaps for our benefit as well.
Willie McGhee is correct that the picture is extremely complicated, but the reality with construction timber from productive forestry is that material is taken off site for something that has a long life as stored carbon—that is the whole purpose of timber-frame building. If we add up subsequent rotations, we get more carbon sequestration than with native woodland, because native woodland is not generally harvested. We should probably look at that over the long term anyway, but a native woodland comes to a point of equilibrium at which the trees start to die and regenerate, and the level of stored carbon in the wood on the site does not increase much more. There is some benefit through improvement of the carbon in the soil, but there is very little gain after a certain point—the graph goes flat. With productive conifer, the graph goes up and down, but it climbs gradually over time.
We could talk quite a bit about the science. You mention timber for construction, but how much of the output of commercial forestry is for construction and how much is for making paper and fence posts and the like, which do not have a long life?
About 50 per cent of an average Sitka spruce crop that grows to 40-odd years goes into logs, of which 40 to 50 per cent go into a stored volume, so probably about 30 per cent of the carbon on the crop will end up in long-term storage.
I have a quick point on the science. We know from looking at temperate forests in other parts of the world that have been around for longer than our temperate forests—we have very few—that the graph is not flat. Jim Colchester referred to the time when a forest starts putting more carbon into the soil. There are high quantities of stored carbon in the north-west and north-east of the States and in European forests. We have not had such forests around for long enough to have the data on that.
That was a helpful discussion of the issue, which is complicated. I wish that we had a magic formula for the committee that said that X plus Y equals Z, but that depends on where the forest is and what is done with it. As was said, we now have guidance under which we do not plant on deep peat, because the science on the carbon does not stack up. I want the committee to be clear on that.
I will go back to an earlier discussion, when I did not get a chance to come in, and I will refer back to the budget. A lot of the discussions seem to be about just the SRDP part of the budget. I remind the committee of the work that is going on in the national forest estate on integrated land use. A third of the national forest estate is not actually forest—it is open. We are introducing starter farms exactly to begin to tackle the issue. The question is not about farming versus forestry because, at the end of the day, it is all land use.
As Nigel Miller said, we have a constrained area of land and it is the Forestry Commission’s responsibility to get the best public benefit from that land, whether that involves carbon benefits, feedstock for industry or benefits for urban populations. Much of the discussion has been on the grants that we pay to the private sector, but the rest of the budget funds our work on the public forest estate and things such as research and advice.
It has been fascinating and good to see the conflicts in the forestry sector. Carbon sequestration is an extraordinarily complex subject, and the targets were developed when we did not really understand it. We maybe still do not totally understand it but, since the targets were developed, there has been a lot of evidence to show that permanent pasture systems—even on mineral soils rather than just peat ones—are pretty good, too.
In what we might call the next period of development, we should revisit the scientific evidence and look at our landmass in a fresh light to see how we should manage it for the best outcomes. There might be prescriptions for grazing management that would improve its performance. We need to up our game on carbon management, not just in forestry but in farming, and I think that we can do that.
We know that we are in a climate crisis and that it is difficult to take things over too long a term. We will have to stick with the targets at the moment. Yesterday, the minister answered questions on the greenhouse gas emissions targets. We recognise that the targets are becoming tougher every year and we are all of the view that we have to have information that is as good as possible.
The discussion was worth having and Nigel Miller’s points were correct. We will have more chance to cover some of the detail as we go on.
We have strayed into this area already but, to take on board Willie McGhee’s point, will the panel give us its views on whether the Government has got the balance right between funding for forestry and funding for agriculture?
Can we have a short answer on the balance, or is there a thesis?
We are perfectly happy with the balance. The reality is that there have been pretty significant cuts. There is no real business development programme in agriculture, except for new entrants and priority catchments—there is big change there. There have been cuts to other spending. Every sector has felt pain and maybe that is right, given the spending round that we are in. The reality is that it is a tough spending round, but at least the forestry sector has a flat budget, rather than a cut one.
I do not disagree with Nigel Miller.
That is good.
The balance at the moment is inevitable. I am not being prejudiced, but a barrier to new planting has been a farming mentality of, “I do not want to go there, and in any case I am getting good money to go on doing exactly what I am doing.”
The way in which support is delivered to farmers is critical. We have just had clarity, for which we are grateful, that, under the programme, a farmer who decides to plant will retain his eligibility for direct payments. That is vital. Farmers have a choice now, so I hope that they will wake up and realise that there is an opportunity on a lot of upland farms to contract their stock on to a slightly smaller area and plant trees, which will be profitable for them in the future.
That leads me neatly into the area of questioning that I want to explore. I absolutely understand what Jo O’Hara said about the national forest estate and the range of land use options that it looks at, manages and encourages, but it is up to the private sector to invest in and manage the commercial forestry expansion that has been targeted under the Scottish forestry strategy.
The main mechanism to support that is the woodland grants scheme. Since the Parliament began—and, I am sure, before—Confor has consistently been adamant that the amount of funding that goes into the woodland grants scheme will not deliver the forestry strategy’s targets. Does anybody disagree with that statement?
Nobody disagrees.
That is excellent. We have £36 million for woodland grants in the draft budget. For reasons that were broached earlier, which relate to SRDP1, it seems that the proposed planting for 2015 is around a third of the target—I think that we are looking at about 3,000 hectares. That suggests that there will be a bit of an underspend in the budget for next year. Is that correct?
There is stuff that we know about formally and stuff that we know about informally. We know formally about the figure that Confor put in its submission, which is about 3,000 hectares in the pipeline. However, because we are in this odd transition year, the new scheme has not opened yet. We expect to get more proposals in when we open the new scheme in 2015-16. We know about the 3,000 hectares formally, but we are aware that other proposals are coming through, so we expect that the figure will be higher next year.
12:30
But given the 12 to 18-month period of preparation for a scheme—
A lot of the initial preparation has been done, because our conservators have been working with agents to get schemes to the point where it is easier for them to be proposed.
Can you speculate on what next year’s new planting targets might be?
Excuse me—I will look at my notes to see whether we have that information. [Interruption.] The team is saying that the figure is in the region of 2,000 hectares.
That is 2,000 hectares more than you already know about, so we are possibly looking at about 5,000 hectares.
Yes, but owners might take different decisions about when exactly they plant. We are here today to talk about a one-year budget and we have a seven-year SRDP and the spending review next year, but forestry is a long-term business. Where we are in the cycle and the way in which we need to manoeuvre between years to respond to demand make the budget quite dynamic to work with. That is where we are, and we think that £36 million is a reasonable anticipation of what we will need to meet demand next year.
Thank you for that, but even if you double the likely amount—you say that you know about 3,000 hectares—to a planned 6,000 hectares, that still suggests that the budget is likely to be underspent. Is that right?
That depends on the type of planting, because planting rates differ. All our modelling suggests that we are about right but, to be honest, we have to respond in-year as well. I have given you our best guess as we stand, given that the scheme has not opened yet and that there are proposals whose exact detail we do not know.
A lot of other people want to come in, but I want to finalise this section of the discussion. Mr Colchester spoke about the programme of planting over the next seven years being back-loaded. I know that we are looking only at a one-year budget, but do you still have confidence that the targets under the Scottish forestry strategy are likely to be met over the SRDP period?
That is really challenging.
That is fine. I have a supplementary question, but I know that others want to come in.
Willie McGhee has a comment on the point that was just made.
My comment relates to that point and to the issue that Graeme Dey asked about. I make no bones about my view that there is an imbalance between the forestry and agricultural budgets. My big caveat is that, as I said at the beginning, I do not have a pat answer about where the money would come from. However, my target would be arable farmers. My natural constituents are in the uplands and are hill farmers. The conversation about planting targets would be smoother and more confident were there more incentives for hill farmers to receive funding from the SRDP arable pot to put trees in the ground. Meeting the targets would be possible if the rates for what used to be the farm woodland premium were upped, because farmers would look much more kindly on planting more trees.
Alex Fergusson had a supplementary question.
I want to ask a further question, if I may.
Dave Thompson wants to come in as well. Is your question on the point that we are dealing with?
If Dave Thompson wants to come in on this point, I will go on to my next question afterwards.
It is really just to get a view from the panel. Willie McGhee talked about uplands and hill farmers. My constituency of Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch has lots of crofters. I want to get a view from the panel on what is happening to encourage forest crofts and to get more crofters into the mix, instead of just farmers in more prosperous areas in Scotland.
There is crofting forestry.
There are two sides to the question: woodland crofts and crofter forestry. We are supporting both and working with crofters’ organisations on both at the moment. The area is so multifaceted and the issues in different parts of the country throw up different aspects. What suits the needs of a sector of the farming community in one area might be different in another area. However, we are working with crofters’ groups on both woodland crofts and crofter forestry.
The good land in crofting areas is probably often equivalent to land in upland areas further south and the poorer land up in the hills, and of course there is a lot more deep peat and stuff as well. What general guidance, if any, is available on what crofters should be planting? Should they be planting conifers, which might not be as suitable for wood-burning stoves as other wood? What is going on to direct crofters towards the most profitable type of forestry in these difficult areas?
A number of years ago, Chris March produced a crofting forestry handbook.
You ask about what would be the most profitable trees to grow, but the issue really is what will grow, which tends to be unprofitable trees such as downy birch and willows. However, it would be quite feasible to run a fire-wood business with those trees, which would be grown on the inby ground, as often the outby ground is not suitable for anything other than scrub.
Thanks for that. I just want to ensure that plenty of encouragement and cash are going to crofting areas as well as to other areas.
This is straying off the issue of the budget but, having been with members of crofting townships on Skye who have gone through the process, I have seen that some had significant benefits, while others found it quite problematic. Parts of the common grazing have been allocated to regeneration and people have grown a bit of willow and a bit of birch, in patches, but the planting grants mean that the ground cannot be used for grazing around the trees, even after 10 or 15 years. That is a big issue for maintaining croft viability. If we are going to go down the crofting route, we have to have the flexibility not only to recreate the environment but to then open it back up to multiple land use. The displacement of deer following planting and regeneration has been a huge issue on Skye and has caused real problems for crofters.
There must be a balance. The WEAG process, hopefully, means that planting programmes in the future will be smarter. However, in areas such as Lairg, the crofting communities have been under a lot of pressure and, over my lifetime, there has been a loss of activity. In the past 20 years, 20,000 ewes have come out of there. No wonder the Lairg sale—which involves not poor sheep but north country Cheviots that are worth quite a lot of money—is not as big as it was.
It is getting to the stage that there is a critical mass issue in the area. Some of the land could go into forestry but, if a lot does, that crofting community will die. The WEAG process must protect those communities and ensure that the good land around Lairg and other good hill land goes back to sheep. By all means, there could be strategic planting in those areas, but the WEAG process is absolutely vital if that community is going to survive.
The technical issues around crofts in the north-west might be different from those on the low ground or in the southern uplands, but the fundamentals of how revenue comes into those particular pots are the same. Part of the problem is that people are paid to farm or paid to forest when what should be happening is that people are paid to run a business in a rural environment, which might involve a bit of forestry, sheep, cereals or whatever. The more integrated that those elements become, the better we will be able to deliver the rest of the items in the forest strategy.
May I ask—
Jim Hume has a question.
Thanks for your enthusiasm, convener.
I am enthusiastic for us to ask more specific questions.
I appreciate that, convener. I have a specific question for Buccleuch Estates, which is a neighbour of mine in the Borders. On what we said earlier about integration, would Buccleuch Estates look favourably on a situation in which tenants planted trees as their own crop and were reimbursed for that improvement, as it were, by the estate when they left the land or retired? Would you consider that arrangement?
The problem is not the principle but the mechanisms that are in place to enable that. As a forester, I have no problem with the thought of the tenant planting ground, but there must be an agreement process. Under the current legislation, once land is turned over to forestry, it is forestry for ever. If the tenant leaves at some point in the future, the landowner is left with forestry, so there must be an agreement. However, I personally would not have a problem with entering into a dialogue so that what happens suits all parties.
Many plantings in the southern uplands are on a shelter-belt basis, so they are there for the benefit of the farm. If the tenant gets more benefit from strategic planting, that has to be of benefit to everyone. The answer is therefore yes, provided that we can get the mechanism to work properly.
Okay. There is perhaps work to be done.
Yes.
Alex Fergusson has another question.
I will continue this enlightening discussion. A sum of £36 million has been allocated to woodland grants. I understand that the cabinet secretary has decided that £30 million of that should go specifically to new planting. That leaves some £6 million, which many would argue is not enough to cover everything that the grants scheme has been asked to do. Given the discussion that we have just had about the importance of integrating forestry and agroforestry schemes, how is it justified that the establishment of agroforestry systems will not be open to financial support over the budget period that we will be looking at and that forestry infrastructure will also be excluded along with a tree health grant? In this day and age, tree health is surely top of the list. Will Jo O’Hara, in particular, address that situation?
Of course. We checked this and I can reassure the committee that the tree health grant will be open next year.
As far as agroforestry is concerned, as you can imagine, we have worked extremely hard to get a smooth transition from the old SRDP to the new one. I came in at the tail end of the last transition and I saw the damage that it did both to my staff and to other people, so I am aware of the pain that there was last time. We have worked really hard and the sector has worked very closely with us to try to make the transition as smooth as possible. As I am sure the committee is aware, that is a very challenging thing to do.
We have to make decisions about which grants we open first. Agroforestry will be open, but the decision was taken to open it a bit later. We wanted to be able to open quickly with grants for new woodland creation, tree health and forest infrastructure. Our intention is that those will be open at the start of the new programme. We have had to delay the other ones, as we had to take a decision about which ones to prioritise. They will be opening, but this budget obviously looks at only one year. I hope that that gives some reassurance.
I am certainly reassured that tree health support will be available, because that is very topical.
I ask the Forestry Commission and the other witnesses to comment on the profit and loss situation in respect of truly commercial forests within the national forest estate and private sector woodlands. How can we compare those? Can we compare them? What are the ballpark profit and loss figures?
Is that question for me?
I think that you should start.
12:45
What is a truly commercial forest, particularly when we are talking about public sector forestry, is a very tricky issue, because the whole reason for our existence and for having a state forest service is the delivery of public benefit. As a result, we manage the estate to deliver net public benefit.
Forest Enterprise, the agency that runs the national forest estate, has done a pretty detailed analysis of the estate to ask whether there is any area of woodland where, on balance, there is not something important for the net public benefit about the estate being involved or which, whether it was in the private sector or the public sector, would not still be delivering the same public benefit. It has looked at those areas in relation to repositioning. I think that the committee has previously looked at the repositioning of the national forest estate.
The question of what constitutes a truly commercial forest within a state forest service, the objectives of which are to deliver multiple public benefits, is a very difficult one. I thought that the issue might come up, so I brought with me our annual report and accounts document. The Scottish Government’s budget document is a few pages long, unlike this publication, which contains the details of the Forestry Commission accounts; I am sure that Jamie Farquhar is familiar with it.
We publish our accounts each year and go into a huge amount of detail on the operating costs of the estate. On the idea of trying to say that one block of woodland is commercial while another is not, I could not go to any area of the public forest estate and say that it is truly commercial. To do so would be a bit risky because, as we have heard, a land manager who is deciding what to do with a piece of land with trees on it will often want to get many things from the woodland—they will have multiple objectives, too; that does not apply only in the state sector. Therefore, the premise that one can identify and account for commercial forestry separately is problematic.
However, we try to do that. We manage the accounting system with FE—my director discusses the balance with the FE chief executive. We state in our accounts that FE’s sustainable forest management activities, such as harvesting and restocking, are managed in one way, and we have a separate set of accounts for the added-value stuff such as the woodlands in and around towns programme, the branching out mental health programme and other recreational initiatives, so it is possible to get the information on what we call the sustainable forest management accounts. The activities are pretty transparent financially, but the information does not come through in the budget because it is necessarily constrained to a small document.
We are just coming to that. Does Jamie Farquhar want to come in?
I am familiar with the lightweight document that Jo O’Hara has just waved at us.
It uses a lot of trees.
The document is not particularly simple to interpret. I accept what Jo says but, with the possible exception of going into the heart of somewhere like Eskdalemuir, it is very difficult to pick out a woodland or an area of ownership and say that it is or is not productive. One can immediately look at a stand of trees and rub one’s hands with glee and think that there is ten grand coming one’s way for every hectare there, but one can look at another stand and think that one is going to have to put however many thousands of pounds into it just to rejuvenate it, and perhaps get nothing back. It is not an easy equation.
In the round, public benefit from managing commercial woodlands is being delivered as much by the private sector as by the national forest estate. The difference is the weighting that one would give in the national estate to some of the other agenda items in which a private owner might not be prepared to invest—for example, mountain biking facilities or specific access.
Okay—the issue could become more complicated than I thought. Willie McGhee can go next.
I will make a brief statement on the difference between the public sector and the private sector. I am not quite sure what has prompted the question, but the Forest Policy Group, and the constituents, including our members, who are not in the Confor camp—or perhaps have just one foot in there—and are not involved in a dialogue with the public sector would see the two sectors as very different. As Jo O’Hara outlined, they deliver very different things.
One thing that adds to the complexity is that, if someone is building a new sawmill or biomass plant, they might want the Forestry Commission on their books for a certain percentage of their supply, because that gives surety on continuity of supply. The straight profitability per hectare might not be there, but the commission fulfils different roles in supporting rural development and industrial development in a way that the private sector might not always be able to do, just because of pricing and/or continuity of supply.
The inheritance of the Forestry Commission estate is areas that probably should never have been planted if anyone was thinking about how they were going to be harvested—I am thinking in particular about areas in my constituency and in Dave Thompson’s.
That applies to private and public forestry, though.
Absolutely.
To add to Jo O’Hara’s point, Buccleuch is almost a microcosm of the problems that the national forest estate has, in that we have some woodland that could be called commercial, but we provide an awful lot of other woodland—mountain bike paths around villages and so on—and we have to cross-subsidise that from the commercial pot. Therefore, I fully empathise with Jo O’Hara on Forest Enterprise’s problems in trying to do that on a national scale. It is tricky because, even within the lifetime of a crop, priorities can change. The real question is whether FE is operating efficiently on those commercial woodlands. From the outside looking in, I would say that it is not doing a bad job.
That is a plaudit indeed.
I want to pick up on the convener’s suggestion that some forests are in the wrong place. I ask the panel to enlighten me on whether anybody has ever looked at the map of Scotland, noticed where the forests are and where they are not and said, “They really ought to be here.” Are we planting in the right place? Has anybody looked at the grand plan? It is called a map of Scotland.
Before starting a discussion on forestry, one has to understand that forestry goes where forestry can go. I mean no disrespect to agriculture, but it has dominated in terms of finance and land values, so forestry has always been forced into the uplands and more marginal land—the land that Rob Gibson talked about in the flow country and other highly unsuitable areas. Yes, the land is unsuitable, but where would we like the forestry to be? It could be on good-quality arable land, close to centres of population, but the fact is that it is not going to go there any time soon.
Or it could be on grouse moors, particularly in Nigel Don’s constituency.
I have a question for the Forestry Commission, which is facilitating increasing numbers of renewables projects, but we have not found out about the profit and loss account for them. The Forestry Commission has a responsibility to enable communities to get community benefit out of those projects. We have a long list of projects that have been undertaken, but where does that information appear in the Forestry Commission’s accounts?
We can write to the committee on that, if you would like me to do so.
It is quite an important part of the income stream. Do you have a ballpark figure?
Yes—the income is around £11 million this year, compared with a timber income of around £70 million. It is a growing aspect of the income. Basically, we are trying to make the national forest estate more resilient, given the timber cycle. We know that timber prices go up and down and that public sector money goes up and down. If Forest Enterprise is solely reliant on the timber income stream, it is not in a particularly comfortable place because, when the timber income drops, it has nowhere to go for the money other than back to Government. The strategy has been to grow the income from renewables.
If it would be helpful for us to write to the committee to point out the section on that in the accounts, I am happy to do so.
That would be very helpful indeed—thank you.
Good afternoon. The written submission from the forest policy group highlights the Forestry Commission’s current disposals programme, arguing that it might be used to encourage new entrants to forestry—I understand that that has started—and refers not only to communities but to “people of ordinary means”. Can Jo O’Hara comment on developments in sales and leasing? Can Willie McGhee and other panel members also comment on how matters can be taken forward?
This question moves us slightly on from the budget, because there is not a budgetary constraint in this area but issues involving some legal constraints and supporting wood lots, for example. We have been working closely with the Scottish Woodlot Association and have put money into it to try to develop wood lots. We are also looking at whether there are opportunities with, for example, the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill to overcome some of the legal barriers that there might be for creating wood lots in the national forest estate. That is work in progress that probably does not appear as part of the budget. There is also the work that we are doing with stakeholders to develop crofter forestry and woodland crofts.
Over the past year, we have been looking at ways of lotting up forest sales. As I said earlier on the review of the estate, sites where the net public benefit does not warrant the land remaining in public ownership will be brought on to the market. However, it was pointed out to us that, although selling it to a single owner might get the best return to the taxpayer, diversifying land ownership might be another agenda that we could address. When we market properties now, we consult local communities and look for opportunities to sell land in smaller lumps so that they are made more available for a wider section of the community. That is how we have been trying to address the issue, which is not strictly a budgeting one.
As we said in our written evidence, we are very keen on three points. First, a lot is made of starter farms, which I think is great—Jim Hume has just walked out the door, but we started that thinking in the Borders.
He might come back.
We would like to see starter forests. If the Forestry Commission is buying land and having starter farms, there is no reason why it cannot have a starter forest. That concept should be fairly and squarely on the table.
Secondly, it is correct to say that we have been working with Forest Enterprise in what has been a very productive relationship. Forest Enterprise has been looking at sales of forests from the north-west down to the central belt and looking at how to subdivide them into smaller blocks, rather than selling them off as one large area. We see great public benefit in selling the smaller blocks, and the Forestry Commission has performed admirably in our estimation.
Thirdly, wood lots are different from lotting a sale. With wood lots, we are pushing for the leasing of areas of forest land. We have had discussions with Paul Wheelhouse and with the Forestry Commission and made a submission to the consultation on the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill. We would really like to see the Forestry Commission grabbing this one and saying, “We will have half a dozen pilots across Scotland and we can do this within some jiggery-pokery that does not mean that we run up against what is in the Forestry Act.” That is something else that we put in our submission. The Forestry Act 1967 is the better part of 50 years old and is no longer fit for purpose. I think that Scotland should have its very own forestry act.
It sounds like a very good item for our legacy paper for 2016.
But very high marks out of 10 for the Forestry Commission.
We have to deal with both disposals and acquisitions in the next period. To take disposals first, inevitably the Forestry Commission does not do the disposals; you use land agents in many cases and your interest is obviously in their gaining the best prices to add to your total cash budget. However, is that the best way to deal with such things? Land agents are usually in a position to attempt to do a different kind of job. Surely, small pieces of land that are no longer required really should be targeted specifically at local groups and communities rather than sold commercially. How the sale of Rossal was handled, for example, left my constituents less than happy. Can you reassure me that you have got a grip of whichever land agent you use and that they have an idea of how you see the general public interest being served in any disposals as well as the cash interest?
13:00
I was last here almost exactly a year ago, when I had just started the job, and the issue with Rossal was kicking off. We have definitely learned a lot from the Rossal experience.
Let me backtrack a little. In its role as the custodian of the national forest estate, Forest Enterprise manages the estate in the interests of the people of Scotland and there is a very strict process whereby any money that is generated from the sale of land is reinvested in the estate in order to deliver more public benefit—it does not go into our cashflow and it is not used to fund revenue. I just want to remind folk that that is where the money goes. Some of the money goes to fund starter farms, some goes to more urban areas and some goes to help community activities. If we generate more money, it goes into the delivery of more public benefits—that is an important principle.
We learned from the Rossal experience that such land transactions need to be handled with sensitivity. Although we look to generate the best value for the taxpayer, we need to be much more sensitive to local concerns. We took Rossal off the market, but it has gone back on, and we have had sales that have gone through subsequently. I would be interested in your take on how sales have been handled since last year. I have seen a change in the way that Forest Enterprise handles sales. The instructions that it gives to agents who act on its behalf are much clearer and it is much more careful about how land is marketed. Lotting is definitely appearing.
Is there anything specific that you would like me to address?
Our discussion could become quite detailed about something that could probably be dealt with as a matter of process at another point, and we are here to focus on the budget.
The point is that some of the people of Scotland in local areas look for clear communication and, indeed, hope to gain access, for example, to show that the national forest land scheme is working on behalf of local communities. If we conducted an assessment of how well it has performed so far, we might find that we are not as happy with it as we could be. When land with trees on it—or, indeed, Forestry Commission-owned land that does not have trees on it—becomes available, how it is disposed of in relation to the needs of communities is quite important to a lot of people and the public estate will have to be a lot more sensitive in dealing with such matters. That is not a criticism; it is just an observation—with a barb.
We had better move on from that subject. My point is that land agents are there to make a profit, so the specific instructions that you have mentioned are very welcome indeed. Thank you for that.
Alex Fergusson has some questions on acquisitions.
I will start with a simple question. What does the graph of the Forestry Commission’s acquisitions budget look like? How much is set aside for acquisitions?
At the moment it is zero, because we have not been able to generate enough revenue from disposals. We are about breaking even in that pot. As I said, we have a mechanism for ring fencing any money that we generate from disposals to fund acquisitions. We have acquired land, but because of some of the sensitivities around the national forestry land scheme and other issues such as community sales, we have not generated as much revenue from disposals as we might have done otherwise.
We have a portfolio of sites, many of which have not been planted yet. I spoke to Forest Enterprise this morning and I think that about 3,500 hectares of land that has not yet been planted is associated with new acquisitions. We need to get the money in from disposals to get that new planting done. Those hectares count towards the 10,000 hectares target. Acquisitions and disposals are inextricably linked.
So your acquisitions budget is dependent on disposals.
Yes.
Is that likely to continue to be the case?
Yes. We met the original target, which we are reviewing. We are finding that, because of the points that the convener raised, disposals are becoming more problematic. Having reviewed the estates, we have identified the sites that have a low public benefit and they have been sold, so we are getting to the point at which the estate is now mostly the woodlands in Scotland that deliver greater net public value. Disposing of sites is getting more problematic, which means that, when we want to do new things on new land with the public forest estate, we do not have the money generated to do that.
We have worked with the Forestry Commission on its disposals scoring scheme, which is how it decides what it sells. We are pursuing the inclusion of a positive attribute—where communities would benefit in terms of rural development or access to timber. At present, what is disposed of is the uneconomic, the rump, the marginal and the fragmented. We continue to have that dialogue with the Forestry Commission.
We have to deal with the disposals question more at the sharp end. It is argued that the Forestry Commission can outbid local bidders for particular pieces of land. When an agent is selling on behalf of a private owner, they are happy to get the highest possible amount for that land. There is no mechanism to ensure that local interests are taken into account in market transactions in which you are trying to maintain your budget and so on.
When you make acquisitions, what do you do to ensure that you do not cut across the potential of local people who are already resident in the area to use the land?
That is a very tricky question for me to answer. I would have to refer to the chief executive of Forest Enterprise on what it does in that regard. As I said to Alex Fergusson, we have a very limited budget for doing acquisitions anyway. We go through a lot of processes before we decide to bid on something. I would have to ask Forest Enterprise and come back to you on its mechanisms for checking such things.
I am not sure how that question relates to the budget.
It relates to the budget in a way, because you are saying that there is 3,000 acres—
Hectares.
—that has not been planted and is therefore a store of land. The acquisition of more land, which you might be able to afford, could affect local interests.
Nigel Miller mentioned the Lairg area. I think that he meant a very large area in my constituency. I can think of a small example in an area near Lairg in which a local family was extremely disadvantaged by the way that a private sale went through. The Forestry Commission was able to bid more than the family could for a piece of land that would have allowed a family business to expand. Anything that you could give us back from Forest Enterprise on that process would be very useful.
A lot of farmers in Caithness are extremely upset about the string of sales that have taken place there and the acquisitions of what could have been sheep farms, which Nigel Miller discussed earlier. If you could provide some evidence of that for the committee, that would help our budget consideration as well as our more general understanding of land use.
It is a bit of a shame that the leasing scheme that Forest Enterprise has tried has not gained more speed. It is still a valued way of doing things, because it removes the competing-for-land problem. People—farmers, estate owners or whoever—who want to plant on a bit of ground are dealt with. With a bit more work and tweaking, we will start to see a better option to deliver the planting target that we want. We are after trees in the ground.
I echo the convener’s concerns. He has given us key examples of where those pressures have arisen. Anybody who has driven around Caithness recently must wonder how some decisions have been rolled out. Similar things have happened in the Scottish Borders; it is not just the northern part of Scotland that is affected. The reality is that the pressure on planting has raised the value of permanent grass and rough grazing in marginal areas, so all farming interests are now competing against a very much higher baseline.
That is all handy to know, but we look forward to getting more details on those matters from Jo O’Hara, if we can get them. That is very good.
I give my apologies for not asking the question that I am about to ask a little bit earlier. To pick up on Jo O’Hara’s point about the disposals being ring fenced to fund acquisitions, what does the substantial income from renewables go on?
I am sorry. We are getting into the details of FE. Do you mind if I refer to my business plan?
Of course not.
We are trying to encourage Forest Enterprise to move the national forest estate into a position in which it can provide a growing level of public benefit to the people of Scotland at a reducing cost. We have already talked about the number of different benefits that can accrue from the estate to urban people, rural people and everyone in between.
The means by which we can do that are varied in terms of how we can generate revenue and where we can spend it. Certain parts of the revenue that comes from the renewables will go into improving our return from renewables investment, but most of it will go into the delivery of other public benefits from the estate. It goes into the net bottom line.
At the moment, we are paying Forest Enterprise Scotland around £21 million a year. That is the net subsidy that goes from Government. All Forest Enterprise Scotland’s other activities are funded through income generation, including the renewables. The money that comes from the renewables goes into the pot for expenditure on recreation facilities, biodiversity work, starter farms, investment in forest infrastructure, and some of our liabilities to do with the wrong trees in the wrong places and steep slopes. I am pretty certain that that element is not ring fenced. That is just for renewables. That goes into the pot and reduces the amount of public subsidy that has to go from the Forestry Commission budget to run the national forest estate.
Okay. Thank you for that.
I will move on to a slightly different subject. In its written evidence, Confor questioned exactly what is funded under the programme costs heading and suggested five possible areas:
“Contribution to Forest Research funding ... Timber Development ... Timber Transport, including the Scottish Strategic Timber Transport Scheme ... Tree health”
and
“Development of the woodfuel sector”.
Can Jo O’Hara confirm that Confor’s assumptions are right and outline for us what else comes out of that £21 million budget heading?
13:15
The biggest item that is missing from that list is the funding for all our conservancy staff—the bulk of our staff in the regional offices, who do advisory work, administer the grants and do all that side of things. What is included under that heading is not particularly clear, so I can understand where Confor is coming from. Confor does not mention it, but that explains the biggest chunk of the money.
Does that address Confor’s concerns?
Yes. That is a relief because, otherwise, there would have been a big hole, according to my understanding of the sums of money that might have gone on the headings that I identified.
Is it right that the programme costs heading includes some money for Forest Research, or is that tied up with the plant health stuff?
Yes, it does.
To be clear, are the five headings that Confor has suggested accurate?
Yes—largely. It is just that the programme costs heading covers a whole lot of stuff, including the running of the conservancy offices, which does not come through particularly clearly.
Does anyone else want to comment on that?
I reinforce how vital the five things that I identified are. They are immensely valuable to continuing confidence in the sector and, therefore, to the investment that is seen at the processing end of our industry.
The forest policy group appreciates the funding that comes from the Forestry Commission to support the Scottish Woodlots Association and the other funding for community development and community empowerment. A dedicated member of staff in Forest Enterprise does that work. I put down a marker by saying that I would like more commission funding to be allocated to diversification of ownership and management of woodlands by local communities.
In its submission, RSPB Scotland states that it considers that
“the prioritisation within the budget allocation for forestry in 2015-16 lacks sufficient focus on meeting the biodiversity needs of Scotland and the Scottish Government’s commitments to them.”
That includes the prioritisation for forestry in the SRDP and for the management of the national forest estate.
Do any members of the panel have any comments on that?
I will be corrected if I am wrong, but I believe that agri-environment measures have received a considerable boost in the SRDP budget. The RSPB has an extremely significant influence on the way in which the support measures under SRDP are provided. Frankly, I am surprised by that comment, and my limited experience of specific projects such as the work on black grouse leads me to disagree with it. That work is being led by the Forestry Commission, so I presume that it is bearing the costs.
My views are pretty similar. The RSPB drew attention to the threat of the various plant diseases and how that might impact on habitats. That is a valid issue to raise, and I know from having read the submissions from Confor and the RSPB that it is a common strand.
From the agricultural point of view, maintaining plant health seems to be pretty crucial at this time, so it does not seem particularly sensible to flatline the research on that. If there is some slack in the budget over the next year or so because of lower levels of planting, having the flexibility to tackle that challenge head on so that we can push it back would make perfect sense. Some real examples are provided that relate to key parts of our habitat, such as native or historic pine forests and blaeberries, but the issue goes far wider than that—it extends to ash and other trees.
The point is well made. On the overall thrust, I have the same view as others.
Alex Fergusson touched on the issue of tree health, on which Nigel Miller has just given a bit of an answer in response to Claudia Beamish’s question. In its written submission, RSPB Scotland highlighted the work that the Forestry Commission carries out in relation to threats posed by forest diseases. Confor also talked about
“the wave of tree health issues”.
Is the size of the tree health budget sufficient, or should it be increased?
No, it is not sufficient, and yes, it should be increased.
That is a good answer.
There is nothing quite like saying that a budget should be increased, but we have to find out where the money will come from.
But Cara Hilton put the words in my mouth. [Laughter.]
We have been saying for two years that the forestry budget is not necessarily the right place to expect all the money to fund plant health issues to be.
Those of you have been into the heart of Galloway or up into parts of the flow country will have seen that the devastation from two diseases is on an environmental scale of horrific proportion.
On the problem that we are facing in the flow country—we are trying to move 2 million tonnes of timber on a road where we are restricted to just 10 wagons a day—unless we can move the whole discussion sideways into another box and draw down other money, we will not solve the problem and you will have an environmental nightmare up there, with more trees on the ground and more diseased trees. This is probably not the time for that conversation, convener, but the problem is quite desperate.
I understand what you are talking about—you are referring to parts of other budgets that need to help to create that possibility. In my constituency, we have noticed that areas of roads that are not trunk roads have been designated as trial areas so that people can see how they wear under increased forestry traffic. It would be interesting for us to discuss how to fund that, but we will have that discussion with other people. Thank you for raising the issue.
It is always difficult when you see a fairly high-level budget proposal for one year, because, given the amount of on-going work on tree health underneath that, the issue is about more than just the money.
Tree health is the absolute top priority for our research budget. We are also grappling with the definition of a new type of forestry. The issue is not just one for the Forestry Commission; it is an issue for the practice of forestry and where we are going with it. For example, what we should be planting when we clear the diseased larch in Galloway?
Some of the expenditure is hidden. Graeme Dey asked about the £21 million programme costs budget. A large chunk of that will be for research and some of it will be for the timber transport fund, which is helping to fund some of the transport issues. However, that expenditure does not appear in the headline.
The other place where a lot of money is being spent is Forest Enterprise and the national forest estate. A huge chunk of the larch that was hit in Galloway was on national forest estate land, and some of the money that is being generated from renewables and timber will be used to address the issues down there. Therefore, what is being spent does not always come down to the figure in the budget.
I have commented on that before, so I simply reiterate that that is my position.
Jo O’Hara and Jamie Farquhar mentioned the significant impact of larch disease. The issue is about priorities. If we are looking at a different planting approach, now is the time to come up with that approach, before we plant again and create problems. That may mean dragging money into the budget to accelerate that work and stalling other work, but that is how you prioritise. Going on without taking cognisance of where we have got to is a mistake.
If only money grew on trees, all our problems would be answered.
To return to the issues of current practice, the different approaches in the budget and plant health—some of you have talked about this before, off the record—we have seen a tendency for people to use very large nurseries, some of which are outwith Scotland. That can often lead to plant diseases jumping rapidly into different areas because people are not buying from a local source. Is there any budget for developing local nurseries, so that people can buy their trees there and thereby reduce the risk of bringing in disease from much further away?
The nursery sector is a small but hugely significant forestry sector that often gets forgotten about because people just think of forests. That crucial sector is pretty exposed in terms of fluctuating planting figures and what is happening with disease.
We have worked closely with the sector—we have had the nursery resilience plan and extra funding has gone in over the past couple of years to help nurseries move.
Small, local nurseries cannot service the demand of large-scale planting of about 100-plus hectares. They need to be able to operate at scale in order to be viable businesses.
What about large local nurseries?
We are working closely with the sector. It is a key part in the chain. It is particularly affected by plant health disease issues. We have new and stricter plant health controls and enforcement in place. You are right to see the nursery sector as a key player.
Confor has a special nursery producers group, which meets regularly. We have an annual meeting with the Forestry Commission and Forest Research, which is proving to be very helpful as we face the problems that Jim Hume mentioned. If it would be helpful, I am sure that I could get the group to give the committee a briefing on what it has been up to.
That would be helpful.
We have had a detailed session. It has been important because I do not think that we have looked at forestry recently with regard to the budget. Every sector that we look at wants to get—and deliver—value for money. This budget discussion has thrown up detailed and varied issues, so I am glad that we have been able to have it.
I thank all the witnesses for their opinions because, when we question the minister, we will be able to reflect that varied set of interests. I particularly thank Nigel Miller, because this may well be his last parliamentary appearance before he demits office. He has applied his sharply focused leadership to the NFUS on behalf of farming and crofting, and we thank him very much for that. It looks as though he might even get a job in Confor—[Laughter.] That would be ironic.
Thank you very much, convener.
At our next meeting on Wednesday 12 November, we will take evidence from stakeholders on the draft budget. We will also consider petition PE1490, on the control of wild goose numbers, following responses from the Scottish Government.
Meeting closed at 13:29.