Item 3 is an evidence session with the Scottish Government regarding pre-budget scrutiny and the programme for government. We have about an hour and a half for the discussion, so, as always, I would be grateful if questions and answers could be succinct. The committee agreed to conduct our pre-budget scrutiny throughout the introductory sessions that we have held over the past few weeks on the different topics within the committee’s remit. This is our first chance to discuss with the Scottish Government the announcements that were made in the programme for government regarding the rural affairs remit.
We still have with us Gillian Martin, the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Rural Affairs, and Jim Fairlie, the Minister for Agriculture, Marine and the Islands. For this evidence session, they are supported by the following Scottish Government officials: Sean Neill, director of energy and climate change; John Kerr, head of agriculture policy; and Clare Morley, climate action and rural affairs portfolio finance lead.
I remind everyone that they do not need to operate their microphones, because the broadcasting team will do that for them. I understand that the cabinet secretary wants to make a brief opening statement.
Thank you for your indulgence. I want to set out some of the things in the programme for government and our priorities. We are focused on ensuring that our rural and island communities thrive by supporting sustainable growth, tackling climate change and nature loss and creating opportunities for future generations across Scotland. That is demonstrated through our delivery of the 100-year programme—sorry, the 100-day programme. Well, people were asking for certainty.
That would certainly be ambitious.
We have delivered the first phase of the £10 million islands resilience fund, which supports economic resilience and investment in our island communities. We are progressing our new national islands plan, which supports population retention and sustainable growth and ensures that islander voices are heard and understood across the Government.
We are committed to implementing the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2025, starting with the appointment of a new land and communities commissioner to support a fairer, more transparent and inclusive system of land ownership and use. We have started work on a rural renewal bill to enable economic growth in rural areas. As we heard in the earlier evidence session, we will support active farming and food production through direct payments.
Over the next four years, we will invest £110 million in peatland restoration in order to increase biodiversity, store carbon, strengthen resilience to wildfires, floods and drought, and support jobs in rural and island communities.
We are continuing to invest in forest and woodland expansion. This year, we have a woodland creation target of 12,000 hectares, and the target will increase annually until we reach 18,000 hectares by 2029-30. We are committed to achieving 21 per cent woodland cover in Scotland by 2032.
We are maintaining support for organisations that tackle rural mental ill health and youth loneliness. We will continue to support Scotland’s valuable fishing, seafood processing and coastal communities through the marine fund Scotland. We will take action to support wild salmon populations, consult on fisheries management measures for marine protected areas, support local food producers to strengthen food resilience, support sustainable agriculture, restore our peatlands and help rural businesses to grow.
We aim to ensure that rural and island areas remain vibrant places to live, work, invest in and retain young people. Over the coming year, we will continue to work closely with our community stakeholders, local government and this committee. Rural and island proofing is central to our approach, which will ensure that policy and investment decisions reflect the needs of Scotland’s diverse rural and island communities.
I look forward to questions on all the above issues and more.
Public sector reform is a major theme of this parliamentary session. A number of the proposed reforms sit under your portfolio, and one of them is the potential merger of Scottish Forestry with environmental bodies. How certain is the Government on that direction of travel? Has the Government considered the experience of similar mergers in Wales?
I will be honest with the committee: I have not yet come to a decision on Scottish Forestry. In the programme for government, we committed to bringing together NatureScot, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and Zero Waste Scotland into an overarching body. The word “environmental” does not preclude all those agencies and organisations from doing the other work that they do. For example, there is a huge commercial and economic growth aspect to the work of Zero Waste Scotland, and none of that will be diluted. In fact, I hope that that work will be enhanced, because the savings on back-room functions as a result of bringing together the organisations could be diverted to improving outcomes, with funding released for the core functions of all three bodies. I hope that they will be able to do more and collaborate more closely.
You referred to Natural Resources Wales. We will not follow a blueprint that has not been as successful as was hoped. Why would we not learn the lessons from that?
I reiterate that I have not made up my mind on Scottish Forestry, because that particular body is operating very well. Through its work, it is crowding in a lot of private investment—in the same way that Zero Waste Scotland does—in woodland creation.
I am looking at how Scottish Forestry operates. I am becoming a bit predictable in setting out three tests for me, my officials and those with whom I am working on public sector reform. First, will the change improve the bodies’ operations and deliver better outcomes? That covers the retention of skills, because that is part and parcel of the first outcome. The tests are all equally important, but if the answer to whether the change will improve outcomes is no, we have a problem.
The second test is whether the change will reduce duplication of effort or enable back-room functions to be shared, resulting in money being saved to be spent on the first objective. I am asking my officials and those from whom I am taking advice to answer that question.
The third test is public facing. Will the change make it simpler for clients, members of the public and those outwith those organisations to access their services? One of the criticisms of the public body landscape—this applies not only to my portfolio but across the Government—is that there are too many public bodies and that members of the public are confused about where to go. If they are confused, that is inefficient, because more effort is required to find the right place—the one front door.
I am applying all those tests. I did not feel ready to commit in the programme for government to anything regarding Scottish Forestry, because I have not been able to satisfy myself on those three points.
When representatives of the industry, including the Woodland Trust and the Community Woodlands Association, were in front of the committee the other week, it was quite striking that there was unanimity on the concerns about a potential merger. One of the witnesses said that they did not believe that any of the key tests that you have laid out could be answered right now.
I am interested in how you will progress the work. In the earlier evidence session, we talked about the need for certainty, for us to take sectors with us and for the pace of change to be right. It feels as though the pace of change in this area is alarming the industry, and the message that we are getting from Confor and others is that the change could affect investor certainty. As you know, the forestry sector involves massive capital investments, so certainty is needed if investors are to make their investments. I am interested in your reflections on the pace of change and whether you believe that, at this point, the sectors support the move.
Yesterday, Mr Fairlie and I had a really good round-table meeting with some of the organisations that gave evidence to the committee. Confor, the Woodland Trust and the Institute of Chartered Foresters were at the meeting. We had a very good discussion on their concerns about whether the change in structure would deter investment. I have asked my officials to reflect on some of the points that they made and to do some further work.
I have read last week’s Official Report. I have spoken to many people in the sector, and a lot of people have written to me about the issue. We have very stretching and ambitious woodland planting targets that will be fundamental to delivering our climate change plan and biodiversity strategy, as well as providing a huge economic growth opportunity for rural Scotland. I do not take any of those things lightly.
This is about outcomes. I need to be satisfied that, when I go back to the Cabinet or have discussions with the Cabinet Secretary for Public Sector Reform, I can justify whatever decision I make about the environmental body. I have my own three tests to meet, but I must also be able to say that, if we do not go down a certain route, we can still achieve good outcomes in relation to public sector reform and the sustainability of the public finances, and that what we are doing will improve economic outcomes, particularly for Scotland.
Mr Fairlie wants to come in. Are you happy that he does so, convener?
I will be very brief.
Yes.
I just want to emphasise the point that the cabinet secretary and I had a really good, robust discussion. We pushed them really hard, and they pushed back. This was not a nice, cosy chat. It was a proper debate about what this would look like. It has certainly given the cabinet secretary a lot to think about because of the back and forth. It was a nice discussion, but it was also very robust.
The people who were represented in the room said that they were fully on board with public sector reform. They saw opportunities for reform in forestry that would be helpful in that regard.
Effectively, I am voicing the thoughts that are in my head. I am not ready to make a decision on this yet. I do not think—
When will you be ready to make a decision? It will not come down to annual budget negotiations again, will it?
Sorry, what was that?
It will not come down to budget negotiations or year-to-year negotiations on issues.
I am not sure where you are going with that. It will be down to my three tests, and that is where I must satisfy myself.
To be very serious about this, the outcomes are the most important thing. There is no point in doing something if it will have adverse outcomes. I need to reflect on the information that I am getting from lots of different people.
The public sector reform discussion is interesting. When you put forward proposals, you do so from a certain starting point. It has been interesting, because a lot of people have said that I should not include this particular body but that I should include this other one that I have not considered. The marine directorate was even mentioned. Some people asked why we were not removing the marine directorate from Government and putting it into the environmental body. That is why we must set out our initial position and have detailed conversations with those working in the sector and those affected by the functions of all those bodies. We cannot go into this with a fixed view; we must be able to listen.
There is a proposal to
“Investigate consolidation of all public bodies involved in the management of public land assets.”
That is quite a broad proposal. Can the minister or the cabinet secretary expand on what the proposed ambitions and gains would be, what bodies might be included and what the timeline for the process might be?
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That particular line in the programme for government goes well beyond my portfolio. It is not only about climate action and rural affairs bodies. The wording is:
“involved in the management of public land assets.”
My officials will correct me if I have misquoted that. That includes local authorities, the national health service and some of the bodies that fall within my portfolio. NatureScot and Forestry and Land Scotland both manage a lot of land. We also have bodies in other portfolios that provide support and advice on land management but do not own or manage any land.
I am not trying to pass this on and move the matter off of my desk, but responsibility sits with Ivan McKee because it cuts across sectors. I cannot give you any more information than that. That question on public sector reform is really for him, more generally. I cannot give you the detail that you are asking for.
Obviously, a lot of the land assets that we are talking about fall within your remit. Can you at least explain the process that you and Mr McKee will follow, and how you will interact, given that it will have significant impacts on your portfolio and on the work of the committee?
It remains to be seen whether there will be significant impacts on my portfolio. I am already bringing together three public bodies into a single agency. NatureScot and SEPA are particularly large organisations, and Zero Waste Scotland will merge with them. NatureScot is a body that owns and manages land.
I guess that this is a discussion for the whole of Government. It will take place between Mr McKee and all the cabinet secretaries who have responsibility for organisations that manage public land assets, as well as those organisations themselves. What happens will be born out of the discussions across the Cabinet involving Mr McKee and the relevant cabinet secretaries, including me. I have set out quite clearly, and at an early stage, the three public bodies that I want to bring into a single environmental agency.
I appreciate that explanation. However, as I mentioned, the proposal will affect areas that fall within the committee’s remit. It will be good to have a timeline—that might be one for you and Mr McKee—so that there is clarity about the ambitions and when we might see the resulting measures. However, I appreciate your point that that is not entirely within your purview or remit.
Yes. I do not know what to say, other than that Ivan McKee has responsibility for public sector reform as a whole. He is overseeing this, and there are negotiations and discussions involving every member of the Government and Mr McKee, and the Cabinet as a whole. Ministers will represent the sectors and the bodies that sit within all our portfolios as part of that process, but he has ultimate responsibility for managing things that cut across portfolios.
Last week, we asked witnesses from quite different sides of the marine debate about the capacity of the marine directorate. The degree of agreement was striking. Fishing representatives told us that resources were increasingly thinly spread, while environmental representatives identified reduced monitoring and data-gathering capacity, as well as a general sense of a lack of Government capacity. After three consecutive real-terms reductions in the marine directorate budget, is there any part of that evidence that you disagree with?
At the moment, the marine directorate is undertaking a five-year delivery planning exercise, which is looking at the transformation of its service delivery in a changing marine landscape, with particular pressures in certain areas.
When I was the Minister for Energy, Just Transition and Fair Work in the previous parliamentary session, I had responsibility for the consents that are associated with offshore wind. At the time—I cannot remember the exact year—there was a recruitment freeze in the Scottish Government. I made the argument that the marine directorate licensing operations team, which is associated with the licensing of offshore wind and other marine activity, needed more capacity. I got agreement on that from the Scottish Government, which put in place recruitment to augment and enhance the capacity of that team by doubling its size, because there was a recognition that we had to be agile in dealing with the number of applications that were coming through from offshore wind. It was a burgeoning part of the economy, and we were able to adapt. I was able to make that argument, and as a result we have increased capacity. We had a dialogue about how those applying for licences could be better supported, and things were put in place to streamline that process.
In the planning exercise that we are undertaking, we will ensure that the short-term delivery priorities align with the support that is required now. However, we are also taking a longer-term view, because there is going to be a lot of change. The Minister for Agriculture, Marine and the Islands can come in and talk about some of the things that are happening in the marine space that mean that we have to be agile in the marine directorate with regard to where we put the expertise. We might have to recruit additional expertise in various places. However, in other parts of the marine directorate, the expertise might not be being used as much as it was, say, 10 years ago. That is part of why we are engaging in that process.
In the round, I understand why people are saying what they are saying. We are alive to it, we are listening and we are trying to adapt the marine directorate to be able to function not just today but in the longer term. The minister might want to come in on that.
On marine funding, there is £45 million in the marine fund Scotland and £150 million is being provided over the next four years towards the replacement of the two existing marine protection and research vessels.
The budget is always constrained. What makes that worse is the situation with the coastal growth fund, which was created by the UK Government. We have the most significant fishing communities in the UK in terms of the volume of catch, but we have gone from 47 per cent of the previous funding that came to the UK under the EU to 7.9 per cent of the UK spending. The fishing industry and coastal communities are absolutely up in arms about that. There is much more that we could have done and achieved, and we want to do it.
The marine directorate is absolutely fantastic. The work that it does and the connection that it has to the communities that it works with is phenomenal. I am hugely impressed by it, but we could have done a hell of a lot more had that coastal growth fund allocated money in the way that money was allocated before we left the EU. I do not mean to make a political point, but that is just a fact.
I am sure that none of us around this table would disagree with your points on the coastal growth fund, but that was a neat pivot away from my substantive question. I want to return to it, because the marine directorate’s budget is unchanged in cash terms, which means that it is £1.7 million lower in real terms, and that is the third successive real-terms reduction. In your opinion, cabinet secretary, does the marine directorate’s budget have sufficient resources and capacity to deliver its existing commitments effectively, and what areas are under greatest pressure?
I understand why you are asking that question. It is the question that we are asking ourselves within Government. What areas require more capacity? How can we move capacity around to be able to service the needs of those who are interacting with the marine directorate?
The director general net zero is looking at the areas of corporate functions to see how we can work across other directorates under his remit to see whether we can deploy resources from other directorates where there is overcapacity.
During my time as energy minister, I found that there was quite a lot of churn of staff going through the marine directorate—the licensing operations team was a particular concern—because the knowledge and expertise that they had was very marketable. Offshore wind companies and others were recruiting and offering salary raises to those very experienced people. We made the point that this is a growth area in which people can have a long career, because of the amount of activity that is associated with marine spatial planning, for example. We were able to increase the capacity and put in apprenticeships, so that we could hothouse our own talent.
The director general net zero is looking across the whole portfolio at the head count that is associated with all the directorates. That exercise is happening now. I have alluded to the fact that the marine directorate is undertaking a five-year delivery planning exercise to feed into the decisions that the director general net zero will make on staffing and capacity. Everything that you have heard from stakeholders is feeding into that discussion.
I am afraid that I am going to labour this point. I will draw you back to the scientific capacity, which was the biggest criticism from all the stakeholders. How much has the marine directorate’s scientific capacity changed over the past five years, not just in staff numbers but in vessel days and research effort? Has it declined? Has it stood still? Is it matching the increased capacity that the sector needs?
If you are asking for particular numbers, I do not have a spreadsheet of who is where in the marine directorate right now. I am going to be honest with you: I do not have that level of detail in front of me. I do not think that you would really expect me to have that level of detail.
The fundamental point is that, where capacity is needed, we will look at where we need to increase capacity and where that capacity can come from. That will be based on the discussions that you are having here with stakeholders, but that is also happening in Government. Fundamentally, the marine directorate is there to serve the Scottish people and the people who interact with it.
I alluded to one example where capacity was not sufficient and we took action, which was in MD-LOT in relation to the capacity to deliver licence decisions and consents. We doubled that capacity. That exercise is now going throughout the whole directorate to make sure that it is fit for purpose for now and into the future. Although I cannot give you numbers on who is where and who does what, that exercise is happening now.
I want to come back to the fishing and coastal growth fund and that 83 per cent reduction compared with what we got historically in the EU, because it is really important. What does that reduction mean in reality for our coastal communities? Do the Scottish Government ministers continue to raise that with the UK Government? It is a major issue that is raised with me all the time in my constituency.
I am not surprised that that is raised with you. Moray is a coastal constituency with a large coastline and a vibrant marine economy. That is one of the things that we raise with the UK Government and have been raising for some time.
Mr Fairlie can give you detail on that negotiation, because he has been front and centre of that. I will hand over to him to give a bit more detail.
The engagement at an official level gets to the point where officials have to say, “Okay, we have made the point.” At a political level, we will absolutely not be letting this go. I will continue to raise the issue, because it is scandalous that the fishing community has been let down on numerous occasions. The big promise of Brexit was that fishing communities would be protected. Since I came into this job in marine, I have been asking fishing communities for their assessment of where we are, and it really is not great.
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What is the upside that we could have achieved? We could have put in the right kind of protections in the marine environment. We need to put protections in place, but how do we do that? We have to make sure that we consult properly and that mitigations are put in place for fishing communities that might be affected. We could have been doing things around changing gear or getting new entrants into the system, because we need the next generation of fishermen to come in.
We have a world-class fishing sector and an unbelievable global reputation for the quality of the fish that we produce, yet that budget has been slashed to the bone by a UK Government that clearly either does not care or does not understand what Scottish fishing does for Scotland. We could have been doing a range of things and making great progress in Scotland, but all that has been taken away by the reduction in the amount of money that we get from the coastal growth fund. I think that the announcements are now out on the funding that we have issued this year, and we had an additional £2 million. That could have been, and should have been, a hell of a lot more. We will continue to press the UK Government to get that funding back to its right level.
I will jump in on the back of Andrew Baxter’s question. The minister touched on this issue. Would it be fair to say that, for both of you, the stakeholder opinions that we have heard on the marine directorate are incorrect and that, in the mind of the Scottish Government, it is doing a good job?
I do not think that I said that.
I believe that the minister said that the directorate is doing a lot of good work.
It is doing a lot of good work. It is doing very good work.
In its current form, is it doing a good job?
I ask you to reflect on my point that we are looking at capacity in the various functions of the marine directorate, where the expertise is, and where the capacity is currently not meeting the demand. There are changing pressures on the marine directorate and we need to be fleet of foot in addressing those.
The situation is not black and white. I certainly did not hear the minister say anything about the marine directorate that suggested that the stakeholders who you spoke to were “incorrect”, which I think was the word that you used. We are alive to the fact that there are pressures on parts of the marine directorate where we need to look at capacity. I alluded to the fact that the director general net zero is looking across all directorates to see where there are capacity issues—where there is overcapacity or undercapacity, and where we need to get additional expertise into the Scottish Government to address the demand that exists for all our directorates.
Jamie, do you want to come back in?
That was a simple question for the Government. I will happily move on.
The consultation on the inshore fisheries management improvement programme was due early this year, but it has been delayed. What is the current timescale for that?
I took the decision to delay that consultation because I wanted to get everybody’s focus on the marine protected areas consultation, which is vital. That issue was a new one on me, and I had to dig deep to get all the details on it. There has been a long ongoing process on that. There have been 10 years of consultation and discussion, although I do not mean a formal consultation process. There are very difficult, challenging and complex issues to be considered. Therefore, to allow us to properly focus and make those decisions with full clarity, I decided to delay the other consultation until after the MPA one is done and delivered.
We have talked about certainty on a number of occasions. The one thing that I hear from the fishing community in particular is that people just want to know what is coming next. That is what this process will help us to give them: certainty that we know where we are.
So it is similar to the situation with farmers, then.
Exactly. During the process of learning about marine, I have discovered that it is very similar to farming. We need to have on-the-ground or in-the-sea engagement and an understanding of the reality for the people who we are asking to deliver.
What is the timescale?
I will not give you a date, but I can say that, once we have given clarity on MPAs and we have the understanding of that, we will do the next one.
Okay—that is coming next.
Section 44 of the Natural Environment (Scotland) Act 2026 requires ministers to report within two years of commencement on the effectiveness of penalties for breaches of sea fisheries legislation. The cabinet secretary will remember that that issue came up during stage 2 consideration of the bill. However, it looks as if that section of the 2026 act is not being commenced through the forthcoming regulations. Why are commencement regulations not being brought forward on that? Is it just about capacity, as the minister has alluded to, or is there another reason?
A number of regulations associated with the Natural Environment (Scotland) Act 2026 are being worked on so that they can be delivered to Parliament. Mr Fairlie has responsibility for the provisions in the act that you have alluded to. I am also looking at nature restoration targets and secondary legislation that will be associated with that. All that work is happening.
The act was passed only just before the end of the previous session of Parliament, so it will take time to deliver many of its elements, particularly ones that were a result of amendments. I do not have the detail on that issue. I would like to take it away and write to the committee, as that is a very specific point.
It is.
I like to think that I am across my brief, but I do not have the detail on that particular point in front of me, because I had hoped to talk more about pre-budget scrutiny and the programme for government.
We would appreciate your writing to the committee to give some certainty.
I am happy to take that away and write to you.
You have written to us about the commencement of other aspects of that act, but that was one area where we did not get certainty.
I am happy to give you the information that you need.
Thank you.
We have been on marine issues, and we are going to move back to forestry. Cabinet secretary, your planting target for next year is 14,000 hectares. How much does the Government calculate the forestry grant scheme needs in the next financial year to deliver those 14,000 hectares?
The convener will not like me saying this, but I will be negotiating the budget in the coming weeks. However, the 2026-27 budget committed record funding of £5 billion to activities that have a positive impact on the delivery of our climate change plan, including those that deliver woodland planting. This year, we have allocated £58.7 million to woodland creation, which breaks down into, I think, about £36.7 million for capital—I am looking at Sean Neill, who has the numbers—and £22 million for resource.
However, the forestry grant scheme is not the only lever that is associated with woodland creation. The woodland creation ambitions and targets are an interesting area of work in which public money will provide a sort of seed funding—I do not want to be punning away—that crowds in additional private investment as a result. Our ambitions on woodland planting cannot be achieved with public money alone, but it is an important prompt for crowding in private investment.
We talked about Scottish Forestry, which has been excellent at bringing in private resource. You have given me the opportunity to talk about the work that has been done in Scotland on the public finance that goes into woodland creation and how that crowds in or brings in private finance. The woodland carbon code has been internationally recognised—at last year’s conference of the parties in Brazil, it won an award for the good work that it is doing, particularly because it provides a model for other countries to show how, if you put in public money at the right level, that can bring in private finance to help achieve woodland creation. The same is true with regard to nature restoration. There is only a certain amount of public money that we can commit to putting into those objectives, but that funding can leverage in quite impressive amounts of private finance.
We are reviewing the grant scheme that you talked about—I am looking at the minister responsible for forestry to confirm that. Some £282 million has been allocated to Scottish Forestry over the next three years to maintain and expand the woodland grants programme, but the issue is much bigger than just Government money. We are always talking about the fact that certainty is required for long-term projects, such as growing trees, and I am giving certainty that, in the next three years, £282 million will be allocated to Scottish Forestry to maintain and build on the woodland grants programme. However, we are also using the expertise of Scottish Forestry, Forestry and Land Scotland and others to crowd more money into that. For example, Forestry and Land Scotland can do things commercially that will bring in additional money to help it achieve its planting targets as well.
There is a picture that goes beyond the woodland grants scheme, and there is a lot of activity happening across the whole of Scotland, which means that we can be really ambitious in that area.
You touched on the fact that Scotland is leading the way in woodland creation. Ultimately, if the UK is to reach net zero by 2050, that relies on land use in Scotland creating a disproportionate amount of woodland. Given the disproportionate contribution that Scotland is making to those targets, is there an argument that the Scottish Government should get additional funding to help deliver that? Ultimately, the UK Government is not going to reach its targets without us.
That is a point that I made repeatedly in my previous role. Within everything that is associated with the UK and Scotland reaching our net zero targets, there are certain areas in which Scotland is shouldering a lot of the burden and taking a lot of the action. Peatland restoration is one such area, and woodland creation is another. I think that Scotland has about 80 per cent of applications relating to the woodland carbon code—my officials will tell me if I am wrong about that. Scotland accounts for 54 per cent of the whole of the UK’s tree planting. I have made the argument to successive counterparts in the UK Government that it is a good idea for the UK Government to give us more money, because we could use it to do even more, which would make a difference to the UK’s ability to achieve its net zero targets.
It is a symbiotic relationship. If the UK does not act on certain areas with regard to emissions reduction, particularly around the cost of electricity, Scotland is in difficulty. If Scotland can do more peatland restoration and woodland creation, and can get additional resources into that, with a model that is really working and could help to create a huge area of economic growth, that will help the UK meet its net zero targets, as well as sequestering carbon and stemming biodiversity loss. It will also create a tremendous amount of rural jobs.
On the issue of rural jobs, you will not be surprised to learn that a key theme during the forestry and marine evidence sessions that we had was workforce and recruitment. I know that that is an important issue in my constituency, as it will be in yours. What more can both Governments do to ensure that we have the workforce in rural communities that we need to enable us to grow these sectors and ensure that they are sustainable?
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Certainty is becoming the slogan of this session. We want to give certainty about our ambition as we set out the targets, and create a market for those who want to invest in woodland creation. As I have mentioned, we are giving out grants to people who want to be involved in that.
Mr Fairlie is doing things in his rural brief to encourage more on-farm planting. We want to make it easier for people to plant on a small scale, but we also want to make it attractive for people from outwith the borders of Scotland and the UK to come and invest in woodland creation in Scotland. That forms part of a conversation that I had yesterday with Confor about the amount of money out there that people want to invest. They want certainty of ambition so that they can invest in woodland creation in Scotland.
That will create more jobs, and it is very important that our educational institutions are alive to the fact that this is a growth area, so that young people can envision a future in forestry that will last their entire career. The same is true of peatland restoration. We want to give certainty about our ambition.
Woodland creation and peatland restoration are key tenets of the climate change plan and the first carbon budget. I have set out what the next three carbon budgets will look like and the areas of ambition in all of them. That will provide certainty to academic institutions and young people who want to get involved in work of this kind, and it will create jobs. That will provide a big boost to the area that Laura Mitchell represents.
It is good to hear about the ambition, cabinet secretary. You spoke about being ambitious in the UK and about Scotland being able to do more than the rest of the UK can on woodland planting and forestry creation. However, is a natural consequence of that that there will be some land use change? Although you might not want to talk about livestock reduction, if farmers and land managers are looking to increase forestry on their land or even to move out of agriculture, inevitably there will be a reduction in livestock, but it will be driven by farmers’ decisions rather than national Government targets.
I have a couple of reflections on that, and the minister is keen to come in on it as well. We rightly talk an awful lot about diversification of income streams for land managers, farmers and crofters. However, I keep coming back to what the minister said: we want active farming and we want food production, which is important, because we want to reduce the amount of food that is imported for the public to eat. Local food production is a good thing, and we want more of it for reasons of food security and economic security.
I have been to many farms during my time in Parliament—in my constituency and as part of my role in the Government—where there is already diversification and livestock grazing in woodland areas. I have seen it with cattle and pigs, and it has been very successful. Where such things are already happening, we need to unlock the potential for more of it.
Of course there will be land use change, but it will be positive, because we will see a mix in what is on our farms and our other land. We want native woodland creation, and not only for commercial purposes; the planting back of indigenous species is also very important. All those things in the mix will sustain our economy, improve our water, build flood resilience—and that is a pressure—mitigate the impact of wildfires and provide jobs. Land use has to change to allow us to adapt to climate change, first of all, and it will allow us to adapt to some of the pressures that we have on our food at the same time, which is critical.
Minister, do you want to come in briefly on that?
Yes. We are touching on some issues that are very close to my line of thought. The convener raised a point that I was thinking about—there will be tension because of land use change. I can hear the shepherds and the hill farmers saying, “Aye, but you’re swallowing up all of our land for trees.” I know that that tension exists, so you are absolutely right to bring it up.
I want to go back to the issue of the budget. What the cabinet secretary was talking about was largely about confidence in the sector. A huge amount of money is available to invest in forestry, and that can give the impression that people are greenwashing, but I want to dispel that notion right now. These investors are not looking to come in and greenwash. There is a massive opportunity for Scotland's timber sector to do far more economically.
In my early days in this role, I heard that the timber that we produce in Scotland is no use, that we cannot build houses with it and so on. However, engineering has changed beyond all recognition. There are companies now using C16 timber rather than C24 timber, and we need to get architects and designers thinking far more about C16 if we are to build more houses.
We have ambitious house-building targets, but we need to plant more trees to replace those that will be used over the next 20, 30 or 40 years. That will immediately lead to the tension that you mentioned, convener. We need to give the sector the confidence to continue to invest in Scotland and plant trees, not simply because it is an environmentally good thing to do but because it is an economically literate thing to do. It will create jobs and do the biodiversity stuff while creating rural opportunities and allowing us to be far more self-sufficient when it comes to the timber that we need in the years ahead.
That, to me, is a good vision to have, but how do we get over that tension? That is where we need to start talking about integrated land management and what the benefits of that are. We have received a lot of criticism for what was happening in Glen Prosen, but we have just created a new 70-hectare grazing tenancy up there for new entrants. I am well aware that no one will make a living from that—I know how you make a living from hill farming and 70 hectares of hill land up in Glen Prosen will not give you that. If we add into that deer management and the skills that could be learned about peatland restoration and land management in general, that will deliver that integrated land management thinking in the next generation.
That does not require someone to think entirely about sheep or cattle. This is about what other opportunities we can create here. Some of it will involve planting and some of it will involve harvesting. It is about creating the opportunities and the mindset that allow us to make that land use change in a way that brings people with us.
That, to me, is an exciting prospect. We are only taking the first steps but, as we move forward, I can see the farming opportunities for new entrants group bringing people forward and saying, “Yes, I can buy into that.” That means that we will have to create the deer larders in the natural environment that we have talked about. We are going to have to get venison on to plates. We will have to get people thinking differently about what Scotland can deliver. It cannot be monocultural thinking.
Whatever action is taken, it must always be taken with the understanding that, where there is economic activity, it builds resilience in rural communities. That is probably what this bigger picture is about.
I guess that I was expecting some of those answers in the previous evidence session on the rural support plan. It feels as though there is an artificial divide between forestry and agriculture and that the RSP is a way of bringing them together. Do you have any further reflections on how the tiers work and how forestry and woodland creation fit into that?
Planting trees on farms—that is what the integrated trees network is about. I continually pump out on Scottish Government social media the need for farmers to think about putting trees on farms. If every farmer in the country planted trees on 2 per cent of their land, our planting targets would be done and dusted. Those trees would then become assets to the farm, as the cabinet secretary mentioned, including for shelter. The planting could take place on areas of land that are currently not that productive.
There are things that people can do differently. Unfortunately, we got into the mindset that trees are bad and sheep are good, or vice versa. It became very polarised. We are trying to move people’s thinking away from that.
In terms of what we can do about the tiers, of course we will look at integrating trees on farms. That is part of the thinking as we go forward. How do we get more people to plant the 2, 3, 4 or 5 hectares of trees that gives them a benefit that will not affect their productivity but gives us that biodiversity?
A lot of the stuff that we are doing has unintended consequences. The stuff that we do will put something in one place, but the unintended consequence will be something else. It is a wee bit like predator control. I hear many people hammering grouse moors because of predator control, but the result is that you see far more red-listed birds in areas where predator control is taking place, and we have seen the numbers that prove that.
It is about taking our siloed thinking and asking, “How do we bring all that together to have an integrated land management plan across the country?” There will be bits that we will disagree on, bits that we will get right and bits that we will try. We will have to work together to get through this and make sure that it all works.
I am coming back somewhat more narrowly to Andrew Baxter’s question. We talked quite a lot about broad ambitions, which the minister touched on. I would be interested to know from either the minister or the cabinet secretary why you feel that we failed to meet those planting ambitions in recent years.
I have some of the numbers. In 2024-25, there were 8,470 hectares of woodland creation in Scotland, and of that, there were 5,300 hectares of new native woodlands, which surpassed the commitment of 4,000 hectares. We surpassed that target. Scottish Forestry is currently working on a pipeline of 35,800 hectares of new woodland, with 14,200 hectares already approved, of which 5,900 hectares are for planting in 2026-27.
You may be alluding to when there was a dip a few years ago. The money has come back into the portfolio, and the planting target has been surpassed in the past year, which is very encouraging. I can only see that going up.
I come back to the point that we were told very clearly by industry representatives that there is an awful lot of interest in more woodland planting by the private sector, carefully managed by our agencies. We want native woodland to be planted as well. We want economic growth in the commercial sector, but alongside that we want there to be trees for decades—hundreds of years—starting now, and there for generations of the future. That will be critical for all the outcomes that we have mentioned, whether it is stemming biodiversity loss or providing shelter.
I know that this is the Rural Affairs Committee, but we also want urban tree cover. We have an ambition in the manifesto on urban tree cover. We saw over the summer the importance of trees in keeping temperatures down in urban areas, so we are looking at that area of work as well.
I would be interested to see those most up-to-date statistics. They seem to differ from what I have seen before, but it is obviously good that you feel that tree planting is now moving in a positive direction. When it has dipped previously, was that a funding issue?
It was due to certain pressures in the Government, but that money was brought back into the portfolio. The trajectory looks very positive. If the committee wants, we can give more detail on some of those numbers. I realise that I have thrown out a lot of numbers, which I do not normally do, but you asked specifically.
That would be great to see.
I appreciate that you probably want them written down.
Thank you, cabinet secretary. I see that your official is scribbling some more numbers down.
I will not read out any more numbers.
We will take all the numbers that you have. We have people to look at numbers.
Dawn, shall we move on to another area?
I will move on to peatlands. Cabinet secretary, you have mentioned peatlands a lot already, but I would like to get into the detail. One of the things that came up from speaking to stakeholders was that the costs relating to peatland restoration have increased substantially. Budgets and targets have been put forward for the coming years. Will that budget manage to fund the full peatland action plan target for the years ahead?
11:30
The commitment in the climate change plan is to restore—more numbers—400,000 hectares of degraded peatland by 2040, which is a highly ambitious and highly exciting target. That will have dual advantages, because degraded peatland results in greenhouse gases leaking into the atmosphere, whereas, once it is rewetted and brought back into health, peatland sequesters a great deal of carbon. Therefore, peatland restoration almost provides a double bonus.
As the convener will remember, peatland restoration is one of the reasons why we could set our net zero target for 2045 rather than 2050, given the volume of degraded peatland that we are able to restore. We are probably one of the countries that have the most potential in that area.
We want to increase peatland restoration by 10 per cent each year up until 2030. We want to give that certainty, because, as has been alluded to, it takes a long time to bring degraded peatland back into health. The Government needs to set out its ambitions, and funding needs to follow those ambitions, so that there is certainty in recruiting the workforce and in training people who own and manage land to do that work on their landholding, whatever it might be.
Over the four-year period of the spending review, we are planning to invest £110 million in peatland restoration and £93 million on top of that in wider nature restoration. I am pleased to say that we exceeded our programme for government target last year. A lot of that was down to the amount of learning on the issue. The peatland action project has been innovative in the work that it has been doing.
I cannot remember exactly where it was, but I visited a project near Livingston that had restored peatland in a completely different way from traditional peatland restoration—the mechanics of how it had been done were completely different. The project was able to work really quickly and, within a year, degraded peatland had been restored to productive peatland that was sequestering and soaking up water. Innovations are taking place all the time.
Over the past year, we invested £28 million in restoring 10,000 hectares of peatland. We published the new peatland action skills plan and the peatland standard, and project agreements are in place for restoration projects covering more than 10,000 hectares, with partners managing that delivery.
We have a number of partners, but we want more—I am looking at the minister. There is so much capacity for those who manage land to carry out small-scale peatland restoration in a way that will make their communities more resilient to flooding. I am looking at the member for Angus North and Mearns in that regard. What is done upstream is so important in protecting our communities from flooding. Everyone is playing their part. For example, our national parks have been able to restore an incredible amount of peatland with the people they work with.
Peatland restoration provides an economic opportunity for rural Scotland. As the minister keeps pointing out, it also provides a way of diversifying income streams for farms and crofts. We need to share knowledge about how to do that, and those who have already carried out peatland restoration on their farms should communicate the benefits in relation to their practice or the outcomes that there have been.
I do not know whether the minister is allowed to come in on that point.
I will be very brief.
There is a tension, because people think that, if they carry out peatland restoration, they will need to get rid of all their sheep, but they will not. Cora and David Cooper have demonstrated effectively that their restored peatland is still used for grazing, and they have even increased their stock numbers—they just do things differently. That is why peer-to-peer discussion is so important. People need to talk to one another. If someone says, “If I am going to do peatland restoration, I think that it will mean this,” there are people who can say, “Actually, it won’t. This is how we did things differently, but we still have restored peatland in place.”
There are ways for us to get more done. We have a crofting estate where we can do more. We need to ensure that crofters get the money for restoring peatland in the first place, so that they buy into it. A number of workstreams are ongoing, and we are thinking about the gains that we can make in the future. We are just starting to get our teeth into the issue and move things along.
I have found the numbers that I wanted to give in relation to the target. Peatland action has confirmed that, last year, 15,000 hectares of degraded peatland were restored—that exceeded our target of 12,000 hectares—and it would be lovely to think that we will build on that this year. I am sure that we will.
You have already partly answered my follow-up question, but it would be good if you could expand on what you have said. Stakeholders told us that, once peatland is restored, resulting in clear environmental and resilience benefits, landowners cannot necessarily monetise that land. Once they have received funding to restore peatland, what can they do with it? How do we ensure that landowners do not then do something on the peatland that will be detrimental to the environment or our resilience because they want to monetise the land?
I go back to the example that I have already given. In the previous parliamentary session, I visited Cora and David Cooper. What they have done in restoring peatland is phenomenal—absolutely incredible—so there are ways for people to do that. I accept that it will not work everywhere, but, where it does, it works incredibly well. People can continue to graze sheep on their land.
The science is evolving all the time. We will find different ways of doing things, and we will continue to explore how we can ensure that people can continue to make a living off the land, whether the peatland has been restored or not. Some things might work; others might not. We will have to go on a learning journey together to find out how we can make things happen.
The restoration of 15,000 hectares last year was pretty impressive, but our predecessor committee heard some criticism about the setting of area-based targets. There was a feeling that we need to consider multiple benefits in relation to prioritising land that can deliver for nature and result in the biggest carbon reduction. What is your thinking on that? It is great to have a big area-based target, but that might not explain exactly what the priorities need to be.
I guess that we need to have a metric—in our climate change plan, there has to be a metric that we stick to.
However, I understand your point and have massive sympathy with it. There are some areas where peatland is really degraded, and that was one of the things that were identified through the land light detection and ranging—LiDAR—programme. We now have a picture, which we did not have three years ago, of where the most degraded areas are. Once we have that data, I can see people being fleet of foot in applying for money to restore that peatland.
There is an issue in how we report back in relation to our carbon budgets. The reporting and accounting for that is outwith our control; that has to be standardised. However, work is ongoing on how we can take account of particular interventions that have resulted in very badly degraded peatland being brought back into health, which will have a bigger impact on the associated carbon accounting.
At the moment, I am using hectares as the metric, but I have sympathy with your point. It is not straightforward, and we need to be agile in reflecting that.
Yes, it is about getting the best bang for your buck.
My question will be short. You mentioned earlier that the public sector cannot do it all. How do we encourage more private finance investment into peatland restoration? Is that something that the Government is actively engaged with and pursuing?
We are actively doing that, and the peatland code is helpful in that regard. There are several reasons why people might want to invest in peat, and there are obviously carbon credits that are associated with that. However, we need people to work under the peatland code to ensure that such investment is done in a sustainable way.
Peatland restoration is a big area of investment. We kicked off a lot of discussions in the previous parliamentary session—those discussions are not just happening with the Scottish Government; they are happening in international forums as well—about how responsible private investment can be crowded into nature restoration more widely.
We are in the foothills of those discussions. Every country that has ambitions in this area is considering how it can use public money to leverage in responsible private finance to be able to deliver more. Scotland is quite far forward in some of its thinking on the issue. For example, I have the figure in front of me that Scotland accounts for 85 per cent of the UK’s peatland code projects—I thought that it was 80 per cent, but it is 85 per cent. However, there is more money out there, and philanthropy funds and pension funds are also looking to invest in peatland restoration.
We are actively working on the issue, and my director general net zero, Andy Kerr, is really exercised about it. He has a background in the area and is looking at where we could have the expertise within the Government to get better mechanisms. Another exciting thing—apart from the fact that we will be able to do more in Scotland—is that, once we get the mechanisms figured out, we will be able to share knowledge with the international community on how they work.
There is ambition in a lot of countries, and there is a lot of money out there that does not know where to go—we also mentioned that with regard to woodland. If we do not get a mechanism in place that people want to invest in, other countries will. We can share the learning if we get that right. There is huge potential in this area, and I am very excited about it.
There is already a lot of private investment in peatland and nature restoration. For example, Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks has pledged something like £100 million towards nature restoration. Those who spend a lot of money doing various things in Scotland that require land have a corporate social responsibility, and we very much need to hold them to account on that.
To jump to the topic of marine restoration, you can look at what we are doing with the marine recovery fund. That came out of an agreement between the Scottish and UK Governments that allowed us to look at some of the money that is flowing as a result of the environmental impacts that are associated with offshore wind, which has enabled us to have a strategic marine restoration fund. That is another example of where we can corral private capital that would have been spent quite piecemeal on projects into large-scale restoration projects.
In the previous evidence session—apologies for coming in again, convener—with the cabinet secretary, me and senior members of the team, we gave several examples of where we know that private equity wants to invest in Scotland, and we are looking at novel ways of bringing that money in.
That is not about greenwashing. I mentioned earlier that there is a lot of fear in the countryside that greenwashing will become a big thing in Scotland, but it is not about that; it is about looking at novel ways to bring in private investment so that there will be savings or returns. That does not necessarily mean selling carbon credits at some future, as yet undescribed date.
There is a lot of thinking going into the issue, and there is definitely the potential for serious investment to come in from private investment, as long as those investments are done in a way that suits the people of Scotland.
Jamie Langan wants to go back to something that we discussed earlier.
11:45
The cabinet secretary has nicely anticipated this, as I want to briefly go back to marine policy. This is pertinent, given what we will be discussing this afternoon. What assurances can the Government give that the fisheries management plans will definitely be published by the end of this year? There has been an initial delay from 2024, and there is now a statutory deadline. Will that be met? Do you recognise that the delay in those plans and the uncertainty have not always been helpful for industry?
I think that the minister answered that in a previous answer, although I might be wrong. We have set out that the fisheries management plans will be done after the consultation and work on inshore marine protected areas. The minister set out why we had to let that process happen first, to inform the fisheries plan.
That is about inshore fisheries management. Mr Langan’s question is about a different issue.
Are we talking about the MPAs?
Yes.
I will hand over to the minister because, obviously, the day-to-day marine functions of the portfolio sit with him.
Mr Langan, ask me the question again so that we know exactly what we are talking about. We are talking about two different consultations here.
Sorry—I may have got us a bit mixed up. I was focusing on the fisheries management plans, which have been delayed and for which there is a statutory deadline of the end of this year. Obviously, that has created uncertainty. I want to check that that deadline will definitely be met. Also, if you could outline the timeline on the MPAs, that would be useful.
I will cover the MPAs first, because they are the most critical thing that we are dealing with at the moment. A huge amount of resource is going into that. I think that there are 160 sites around the country, and extensive engagement is going on. We have extended the consultation period from the normal 12 weeks to 16 weeks to ensure that we get to those really hard-to-reach people who would not normally engage in consultation.
To be honest, one thing that I have heard from the fishing community and stakeholders is that they are a bit exhausted with consultations, because we keep going back and asking them more and more stuff. That is why we need certainty on the MPAs. That consultation will go into January of next year. We will then have to do the analysis and the work to see what we are going to come back with. There are two questions in the consultation, and we will need to see the results and come back on that.
The fisheries management plans consultation, which is what I think you are talking about, will follow, after the work has been done on the MPAs.
We will move on to the awkwardly named rural renewal bill, which even the cabinet secretary stumbled on earlier, so please consider changing the name.
Please give me suggestions.
We have had the headline announcement of the broad provisions in the bill, but what, in your mind, is the proposed scope of the bill? When will the Scottish Government publish proposals and a consultation on the bill?
Ever since I was given this portfolio, I have been trying to say the name of that bill. I would like to change the name, but I am calling it the RRB at the moment.
I looked at some of the policy suggestions that were associated with the bill, and I thought that it could potentially do more. I want to use the bill to remove barriers to economic growth, particularly for small businesses and businesses that want to diversify into different areas. I want to look at the barriers to housing creation in rural areas, particularly where communities are using public money to create housing.
During the summer, when I was out and about in Scotland speaking to community groups, I heard about a lot of things in the planning system that are stemming economic growth and that mean that, in rural and island areas, it takes far more time for things to get done and there are additional costs. I have been working with my officials on that.
The bill is not in the programme for government; instead, the work on the bill is in the programme for government. I want it to be an enabling bill that will take on board some of the frustrations that I hear about from those who work in the rural economy and live in rural areas. The bill will look at the regulatory landscape and the situation in which we have things that work in an urban environment but not in rural areas. We will also consider things that I can put into law that will be able to unlock economic growth. By economic growth, I also mean stemming rural depopulation.
I am not looking at the things that I want to do; I am looking at the problems and thinking about how we can unlock things that make those problems worse, or remove barriers that prevent us from addressing some of those problems. I know that that sounds a little woolly, but I am working back from the problems and looking at the levers that are available in the powers that the Government has. I am also looking at the existing regulatory landscape, which is well meaning but has had unintended consequences in rural areas. I am looking to address some of those issues in the rural renewal bill.
I want the bill to be an economic unlocker. One big driver of that unlocking is giving businesses flexibility to do different things. It is also about providing housing in communities that struggle to get people to come and work there for service provision of any description. I am interested in feedback from all my rural counterparts on that. I want to hear about the things that, as I am speaking, you are hoping that I am going to address. I want to have cross-party discussion on the issues.
I have already had a lot of discussion with stakeholders in the rural portfolio. More importantly, I have been going out and listening to folk who have tried to do things and have then decided not to. I have heard from folk who have tried to diversify their business and have said that, if certain things had been in place, or if we did not have certain things in place, they could have got something done an awful lot better and could have created more jobs in their business as a result.
I am not just in listening mode; I am in problem-solving mode. I will not introduce the rural renewal bill until I have done that work and am satisfied that there are key levers. I am probably looking at about the middle of this session of Parliament for that.
I have a quick follow-up question. We have the rural support plan and the rural renewal bill, as well as the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Act 2024, which is where this all comes from and which was about supporting rural communities. How do those things marry together?
The rural renewal bill will marry together with more than just the rural support plan. It will go into areas that potentially will have an impact on many portfolios, which is another thing that I need to keep in mind. As I am formulating my plans for the rural renewal bill in consultation with stakeholders, I need to have discussions across portfolios in the Cabinet to get buy-in for some of the things that I want to do.
Okay—nobody likes the name. I hear people sniggering when they say the name, and I understand that. The name might be rubbish, but the intent and the genesis are absolutely bang on. We have to remind ourselves of that. We should not say that, because the name does not fit, the genesis and the purpose are not good.
We have issues in rural communities. There are challenges—more so in some areas than in others—with housing, transport and access to medical care and other things that people normally expect. We need to look at that in the round. As the cabinet secretary just said, there will be a cross-portfolio approach. I have responsibility for the islands. What do I do with the islands? I will have to speak to all the other ministers with responsibilities for health, education, housing, transport and so on. We will be speaking to Mr Flynn and Ms McAllan and saying that these are the issues that are coming up, and these are the areas where we need to find solutions. Housing is one of the biggest issues. How do we keep rural communities alive? We keep them alive by making sure that people can live in them, so we need to think about how to create more housing. There is a £37 million rural housing pot, so how do we get more funds coming into that in order to create a much more ambitious housing programme? We need other portfolios to work with us on that.
The bill that the cabinet secretary is going to take forward—hopefully we will get to change its name—has great intentions, but it requires us to think collectively about the issues that we can identify and the solutions to those problems, whether we can afford to do them in this session and whether there are things that we can do now to develop rural resilience. It is a really good idea and a really good plan, and we now need to make sure that we are implementing it together.
I will tell you what I am not interested in doing: creating more reports, reviews and strategies. I am not interested in any of that. I am looking at mechanisms and unlocking.
I will give you an example to illustrate what I am talking about. I was just outside Ullapool, in Andrew Baxter’s constituency, and I was speaking to a community that had got public funding to create a small mixed-use development comprising eight houses. They had to pay developer contributions back to the council for the community, but they themselves were the community. Again, that is an example of a well-meaning regulation that is being applied in the wrong way. That does not really make sense. How is that creating community wealth? How is that allowing them to do more with the money?
There are lots of different things to think about in this area. Again, I am open to suggestions from MSPs, based on their experience of representing rural areas, and I am also open to suggestions on a postcard regarding the name of the bill.
Great. I am sure that your mailbag is going to fill up on both those fronts.
Cabinet secretary, I note that the programme for government is quiet on the issue of animal welfare. Obviously, 20 years on from the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006, there is a lot of stakeholder conversation about the gaps that exist. Are there any issues on which you think that the Government might be looking to make progress?
I cannot put every single thing that we are doing in the programme for government, or else it would end up being like a 1980s telephone book. There is not a specific bill or piece of legislation that we are taking forward in that regard, but the minister will be able to talk about some of the animal welfare issues that he is dealing with, such as farrowing crates. There are a number of things that are being taken forward, and the fact that they do not appear in the programme for government does not mean that they are not happening.
If the convener’s patience has not been stretched beyond belief, I can hand over to the minister.
I have a list of ways in which my patience has been stretched.
The point is well made, but it would not be feasible to include everything that is being done in the programme for government. The animal welfare team in my division—there is a specific team—is constantly doing forward planning as part of its work, including looking at reports that are produced by the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission. A number of issues will come forward over this parliamentary session, and we will bring them to the committee as and when we need to have a discussion about them.
I am aware that, 20 years after the act was passed, SAWC is looking at the gaps that exist, and, at first glance, it seems that a lot of those issues would need to be dealt with through legislation. There are gaps relating to cats and wild animals, for example, and we are still looking for welfare guidance on farmed fish. A lot of questions have been raised as a result of members’ bills that have passed in the past couple of sessions with regard to what they mean for the animals that are not covered by those very targeted efforts.
If SAWC comes up with areas of policy that should be looked at and that would require legislative change, is the Government open to there being a new animal welfare bill?
I am certainly open to looking at the issues that SAWC raises, but I am definitely not committing to introducing any legislation until I see what the outcomes of those reports are.
I understand that, but that was not the question. It was not whether you are committing to a bill; it was whether you are open to there being an animal welfare bill, given the issues that are being highlighted by stakeholders?
I am going to reserve my answer on that until such time as I see what SAWC comes back to us with and what the issues are. There are a number of ongoing workstreams at the moment, so we need to make sure that we are prioritising the things that will have the most impact.
It might be useful if you could give us a timescale for that. We know that SAWC is going to report by, hopefully, the end of this year. How quickly can the Government analyse the recommendations that come out from the three working groups and then inform the committee about what your intentions will be?
Yes, we can do that.
Sorry, when can you do that?
We will take that away.
Okay. Thank you all for your time this morning. It has been a long but productive session. That concludes the public part of our meeting.
12:01
Meeting continued in private until 12:23.
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