Chamber and committees

Earlier, you said that areas of deprivation have been hit harder. Will that make it harder for us to close the attainment gap?

Gentlemen, I am loving this conversation. David Finlay, I think that you and I should sit down over a number of pints and have a lot of blethers. The idea that you just proposed is one that I took to Ross Finnie almost 20 years ago and it was pooh-poohed then. We will see where it goes from here.

Dee Ward, I should register an interest in relation to you, because, many years ago, I bought a blackface tup off your shepherd.

We talk about regenerative farming, but, as a new entrant into farming, I was not bound by the same constraints of what had aye been done. I did things that I thought were right. I always had the environment in mind. I got involved in farming because I wanted to be out in the countryside and I love nature. I was growing clover 30 years ago, and it is now being talked about as a great new product, even though it is not and it has been there for ever. How out of touch is the farming industry with nature-friendly farming? I do not know who is best placed to answer that, but I will go to Andrew Bauer first.

Yes. I am very interested in asking about the private funding that is coming into farming for carbon sequestration. How do you see that working? One of the things that people are up in arms about is big companies coming in, buying huge swathes of land and then saying that they are green because they own an estate in Scotland. Where do you see the private money coming in, and how would you hold it here?

It reconfirms my fears that it is an uphill battle, particularly given that supermarkets determine what we are going to have. I agree with Finlay Carson: they make all the promises that they are all about giving people choice, and they will do that, but people make a six-second decision when they walk into a supermarket—from the time they look at the product to the time they put it into their basket—and the first thing that they look at is price. We have to change the culture before we are going to get that wonderful warm feeling that we have in here out in the public domain. I am not saying that to be negative; I am saying that that is the challenge that we face.

I want to come back quickly on a point that David Finlay made earlier on. We have to give proper recognition to the farmers who are doing it to a level that is already what you call regenerative—I would call it old-fashioned farming. I planted 2,500m of hedging because I wanted shelter belts. Stuff is already being done. We need to take cognisance of that rather than starting at the bottom and trying to bring everything up. The ones that are at the bottom should be brought up to the level of where we currently are, using the baseline of an area. One size disnae fit all, and wherever someone lives, whether that is in the west, the south, Fife or Perthshire, there will be a baseline for that area. We need to look at what it is like in that area and then at how we bring everyone else up to that standard. It is hugely complicated, but I am thoroughly enjoying the conversation.

Can I keep talking, or are you—

I have a brief question that I wanted to ask earlier. You are keeping the calves on the cow, so what kind of bull are you using?

Thank you.

I have loved this conversation. I have just come out of farming and into politics, but maybe I should be back out in the field.

I love the warm, fuzzy glow that we have as we talk about the good things that we could do and so on. I have been going through this process for 20 years, with people trying to link public procurement to local food networks—we coined the phrase “buy local, eat local” almost 20 years ago—and I think that it is all great. I get it. However, public procurement spend in Scotland is worth between £150 million and £180 million, half of which is spent on Scottish produce, the Scottish farm budget at the moment is about £540 million, and the Scottish Government has a fixed budget, which will be determined by what the UK agricultural policy turns out to be. By comparison, supermarket sales of food alone in this country are £12 billion, and another £10 billion is spent in the pub and restaurant sector.

I love what we are talking about—I love to see it happen. However, the reality of those figures demonstrates that we are just tinkering around the edges, so how do you see us getting this approach into the main stream? I see Michael Clarke nodding his head.

Excellent. Thank you.

I dispute your point that there has not been an uptick in the number of people, particularly in the age group that you mentioned, getting vaccinated. The Deputy First Minister told us that he cannot give a definitive answer, but you also cannot prove a negative. I argue that the scheme has had the effect that we are trying to achieve.

Leon Thompson, what is your position?