Is it a case of change for the sake of change? What was being stopped or impacted by the aims being set out as they were?

Do you agree that there is a need for the Scottish ministers to take powers to amend environmental impact assessments and the habitats regulations through secondary legislation? Whether you agree or not, what are your reasons?

Chief Inspector Michael Booker talked about the reasons why reporting and data might not reflect the true nature of the crime. We see that in England and Wales, where cases in which charges are brought are estimated to be below 5 per cent. I wonder whether the same reasons for that—how it is recorded—apply here. I also wonder whether the bill will make a difference not only to the recording of incidents. Might we see recording increase but incidents fall due to the impact of the bill, or should we add something to the bill to make it more impactful?

There would be a change in perception.

Is the bill where we should deal with that? Listening to both sides of the argument, it seems a complex matter. Could we deal with it in the bill? We have the ability to amend it at stage 2, so is there something that it would be useful to put in the bill? Or should the matter be dealt with in domestic abuse law, although we do not have a vehicle at the moment in which to do that?

I want to push a little further on that. I totally get where animals are being fed, but a lot of our animals are grass fed—they are on the hill. That is not arable ground; it is different. They are there, and they are providing a nature benefit as well. We have seen that, where livestock numbers have crashed, that has had an impact on the natural environment. How do we get the balance? At some level, having animals grass fed on the hills is providing a nature benefit. What happens if we lose that? There is always a balance between carbon and nature and what we do to protect both.

If there are glaring errors in that jigsaw, and if your explanation to us for that is that the matter was not mentioned at ARIOB, but we go to the members of ARIOB and they say, “Yes, it was,” then that is not working. If members of ARIOB are pointing out things that you appreciate, from talking to us, are issues, but you are not hearing it from them, then the arrangements are not working.

I do not want to hog the session, but I have more questions.

To me, that is an indication that ARIOB is not working. The committee is not part of that co-production—maybe we would like to be a part of it—but we are supposed to scrutinise and vote on legislation. It is surely not right that things that are discussed with the industry end up before us as issues.

On the vision, to go back to the jigsaw analogy, most of us look at the picture of the finished thing as we put the bits in place, but in this instance, no one sees that picture as the bits are being placed. That is creating uncertainty in the industry. People do not quite know what the finished product will be.

For instance, we hear a lot about emissions from beef and dairy animal rearing. People who are involved in such rearing do not know what the Government is going to do or what it will encourage, so numbers in animal breeding are falling, which means that we are importing meat from other countries that do not have anything close to our ability to offset carbon.

How can people work with that? Everyone is happy that there is no cliff edge, but they need at least to know the direction of travel so that they can move in that direction. That is missing.

Part of the problem is that it feels a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. No one sees the full picture that we are aiming for and it is all very piecemeal. SSIs on various bits are lodged at committee, but when we highlight issues raised by farmers and crofters, you say, “Oh, but that was discussed at ARIOB and they never said anything.” When we go back farmers and crofters, we discover that they have said things at ARIOB that they have then relayed to committee members in order to try to raise their concerns, which turn out to be huge issues when we are looking at the statutory instruments. Obviously, something is not working. I think that you would agree that some of the issues that have been raised by the committee about the statutory instruments were crucial and should have been sorted out earlier.

If the ARIOB process was working, stakeholders were being heard at those meetings and the department was listening to what they say, we would have overcome the issues. It seems to me that ARIOB is not working and that there is no vision for agriculture in five or 10 years’ time, so people feel as though they are running around like headless chickens, trying to see how their business fits into the various piecemeal aspects of legislation. Surely, that is not the way to work. What can we do about ARIOB to ensure that it works? Is there another mechanism that we can use? What is your vision for agriculture? What will be happening in the sector in five or 10 years’ time?

Can I—