Chamber and committees

I hope that people are now beginning to fully understand what we are doing. I understand that the tenanted sector has different concerns, but that is more about what it is able to do. There will be areas in the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2025 and in the implementation of some of the regulations that are coming forward that will allow those protections. That is probably not an issue around the rural support plan—that is probably about land tenure.

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.

It is vital. We must make sure that we have a resilient food system. The first objective of the 2024 act was to make sure that we have a resilient food system in Scotland that allows us to give stability to the economy in rural areas and deliver the food that we want to see on our plates and in our shops. That is the backbone to everything.

You have pre-empted me. I was hoping to return to the points on which there is agreement. Whole farm plans are useful, as they allow farmers to understand their own baselines. However, I understand that they might feel like a burden too far, particularly for smaller producers. The policy development group will consider that.

The whole farm plan allows a farm-scale baseline so that farmers know exactly what is happening on their farm. The most important things are soil and water—that is it. If the soil is right, you can pretty much know that you are going to put a resilient food system in place. When a farmer does the whole farm plan—getting soil analysis and biodiversity stuff done, making sure that they have an animal health and welfare plan in place—that gives them stability to know what is happening on their farm and consider how to improve things and move on.

The reason why it has become a bit of a box-ticking exercise for some people is that they have not seen the direction of travel or what is coming next because they switched off and stopped engaging. That is why it is important that everybody switches back on. Whole farm plans are going to give farmers the ability to better understand what is happening on their farm and what the situation might look like in 2030 if they do not take the action to change.

No. I will list the members of the policy development group, which I chair. It includes Jonnie Hall from the NFUS; Martin Kennedy; Denise Walton from the Nature Friendly Farming Network; Richard Lockett from the farming and wildlife advisory group; Steven Thomson from Scotland’s Rural College; rural payments and inspections division delivery colleagues, because we can sit here, and this has happened—

I 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.

I am sorry—

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.

Could you pull down your microphone a bit? I apologise, but I am struggling to hear you.

There will be long-term certainty. As I have said a couple of times, between now and 2030, the policy delivery group will come back to the committee to say, “This is what we have done on regions, on activity and on the various other things.” Come 2030, the group will have looked at a range of issues. When people go on to the interface—I hate the phrase. When they go on to their computer to make a claim under the integrated administration and control system, there will be an opportunity to have drop-down boxes that they can go into and out of to say, “I can do this over here and that over there,” which is why we need the flexibility. Every farm will be in a different place and will have a different destination that they want to get to. Every farmer will have the ability to go into the system and say, “In tier 1, we get this amount of money and in tier 2 I can pull this from here to there.” The system will allow farmers the flexibility to be able to go on the journey with us.