Chamber and committees

If there is no cost involved, surely you could give a guarantee that there will be support to allow people to do that. If we take into account demographics, access to equipment and so on, that support would not be a lot. There will be people who are perfectly capable of doing that themselves, but there will be others who are not.

It feels like you are putting the cart before the horse. We had understood that the rural support plan was going to be the foundation of everything—that it was the strategy for how agriculture was going to be supported. It now feels like it will be a jigsaw puzzle of some things that are already in place and some things that are not. It does not feel very straightforward. Will the rural support plan be a meaningful document, or will it be a load of other pre-decided policies put together? Will there be a rural support plan in the way that we understood?

I do not agree that that is the case—I feel that we do not have a handle on the Government’s vision and direction for agriculture. In a way, that is what the plan was supposed to set out. It just seems that we have a piecemeal approach, and I think the farming community, certainly, was really—

Okay.

My question is about the information technology system. The cabinet secretary said that it was not really designed for a four-tier support system. Can it now deliver a four-tier support system? Is that being worked on?

It really does not feel that way, given that it follows on from the suckler cow premium. It feels as if there is no understanding of what crofters are about. We were told when the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill passed that the measures would be proportionate, but we have a one-size-fits-all scheme that does not take account of the age demographic and, if the form is online, whether people have access to IT. That rules out many crofters from doing it themselves. All I am asking is that you put in place the support to ensure that it is affordable for them to apply and that the cost of doing so does not come out of the payments that they receive.

My real fear is that all these things will put people out of business and make them give up. That will impact not only on them but on the environment, because a lot of that land management practice is good for the environment and nature. You need to protect that, because, frankly, if you do not, you will be throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Beatrice Wishart has been flagging that point since last year. The answers are there; you have said that on the record. All those things have been discussed, agreed and put to bed, so, if there is no issue, why was that information not communicated before this point?

On the calving intervals SSI, the trust issue is that you gave guarantees that you would take into account the issues that island and crofting communities face, but, to date, you have not put on the record what the derogations and supports will be. You can understand why there is a lack of support when you say to people, “Yes, of course we are taking cognisance of this,” but you do not give the information. I feel as though we have dragged information out of you today about the fact that this can be delivered with no cost and will not be detrimental to people. Had that been made clear, I do not think that we would have had this communication. We are all trying to get to the same place, so why is there reluctance to give the guarantees that people need?

Do such scams not highlight the need to ensure that landowners work in the public interest? Should there not be a test to ensure that those who buy large tracts of Scottish land will act in the public interest, so that such scams cannot take place?

I, too, thank Rachael Hamilton for securing the debate and for hosting the drop-in session with NFU Mutual and the national rural crime unit. That highlighted the issue of theft of equipment, with the incidence of such theft and the costs increasing. Although insurance companies quite often pay out for such theft, the cost of insurance is borne by everybody who holds a policy, so it is not a victimless crime, and it adds to the cost of running farming businesses. In addition, as other members have mentioned, the personal impact can be enormous.

The cost of rural crime has increased by 35 per cent. Other members have mentioned the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023, and it would be good to hear from the minister whether the Scottish Government has looked at perhaps introducing legislation similar to the 2023 act. It would also be good to hear whether there are ways in which the Scottish Government could help to incentivise the installation of anti-theft and tracking devices, which would be very useful for those who have large and expensive pieces of equipment.

The increase in rural crime is happening at a time when rural police numbers are falling. I raised concerns some time ago about island policing with the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs. At that time, there was a situation on Uist and Eriskay in which no police were on duty when a serious incident had to be dealt with, so off-duty officers had to come in to deal with it. They had to work, and hold a prisoner, overnight—they should not have been working those hours while they were on duty, far less while they were off duty. They were working extremely long hours with no policing cover at all.

Sadly, those who commit crimes in rural areas know that that is the case for policing throughout rural Scotland. Although islanders have some protection against equipment theft—because thieves would need to get the equipment off the island undetected, which is difficult when they are sitting in a ferry queue—they do not have protection against other forms of crime. Things such as bank closures, for example, have added to rural crime. Since 2015, there has been a 60 per cent decline in the number of bank branches, and rural Scotland has borne the brunt of those closures.

In the Highlands and Islands, there has been a huge loss of bank branches. For example, there has been a 72 per cent decline in Caithness and Sutherland, a 66 per cent decline in Moray and a 65 per cent decline in Ross, Skye and Lochaber. Criminals know that cash-based businesses will be holding much more cash if there is no local bank branch to enable them to deposit it. We know that those businesses are being targeted; criminals know where to look.

The lack of police means that there are more break-ins and thefts of property, as well as, as has been mentioned, thefts of animals. Although tagging and traceability systems make it difficult to sell stolen animals on the open market, there are many outlets for cheap meat where no questions are asked about where it came from. I read recently that it is estimated that that led to £2.7 million of losses to farmers in 2023. There are also ramifications for food safety, because people are buying meat without looking at the traceability.

We need to ensure that there is not a rural-urban divide with regard to fighting crime. We need to ensure that rural areas are adequately policed and that police have the equipment to deal specifically with rural crime. I hope that the debate highlights those issues, and I look forward to hearing the minister’s response.

So private buyers are held to a different code, if you like, from community buyers.