Chamber and committees

I have just two questions. They might be very tenuously linked, but I will ask them both at the same time, and the witnesses can choose which to answer.

First of all, the ban on horticultural peat has not progressed through the Parliament, because of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020. However, the market seems to have moved naturally in that direction anyway, which might have a lot to do with public perceptions of using peat et cetera. I would like to hear your thoughts on that and on whether we need an actual ban to make sure that that happens.

Secondly, when we were talking earlier about the need to find some way of monetising peatland without actually exploiting it—that is the very tenuous link with the previous question—Mr Hutchinson mentioned the carbon contract, and I would be interested to hear more about those contracts and how they are helping.

Welcome, everyone, and good morning. Considering the current focus on public service reform, will you comment on the proposals to consider including Scottish Forestry in the merger of NatureScot, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and Zero Waste Scotland? In relation to the investigation of the consolidation of public bodies that are involved in the management of public land assets, what are your views on the direction of travel?

The question was really about whether there is equal responsibility between the Scottish Government, with its strategy, and the delivery partners that are on the ground making the reform programme happen. Is the programme the responsibility of one or the other, or of both? Where is that responsibility, and who needs to work more to get to where we need to be?

That is helpful—thank you.

The Auditor General already touched on this point in his initial response, but my other question is about the national priorities that relate to skills planning for the future workforce in different industries, and the need to have a skilled workforce for things such as the climate change agenda. Will you elaborate further on that? You said that the work was behind schedule, but Alison Cumming has just said that actions have been taken over the summer since the report was published. Is further work required, or is that aspect now coming on track? It would be helpful if you could dig down a bit further into that point on ensuring that we have the skilled workforce that we need to move into the future.

Could you comment on the progress of the reform programme? I probably know the answer, but is it where you would expect it to be at this early stage? Are the delays down to the structure of the programme, or are the delivery partners not delivering the strategy?

Yes, if that is okay. I want to take advantage of the fact that we have two members of Scotland’s Rural College here.

I am thinking about the education of our future generations of farmers, agricultural workers and horticulturalists, about the traditional piece versus biodiversity—ensuring that biomes are healthy by doing co-planting and all those kinds of things—and about ensuring that the food that we produce is as nutrient-rich as possible. I am also thinking about ensuring that market gardens are paid the same attention as arable farming and livestock, and then about the environmental piece around that.

How are you approaching that within the teaching at the college? How does that then feed into the vision for the future of agriculture?

My questions have already been touched on slightly, but I want to dig deeper into funding issues. I seek your views on funding allocations between the tiers from now to 2030 and the allocation from 2030 onwards, following the movement between the tiers. What do your organisations feel about the potential for front loading funding so that smaller operators are not proportionately disadvantaged when it comes to business decisions based on land use change? How do you propose that the funding model could adapt to support all the needs of your operators, including in terms of capital costs, which have been mentioned?

Welcome to the meeting. First of all—I am glad that you have brought this up already—I just wanted to say quickly that the term “backlog” has quite a negative connotation. The expectation is that there will be cases in the system; the number that you have put on that in the report is 20,000, and we are, at the moment, below that, at about 13,000. That is actually positive.

However, the significant issue, as has already been mentioned, is that the number of sheriff solemn and High Court cases is up, and is continuing to go up. It has fallen since its peak in 2023, but it is still higher than pre-pandemic levels. Can you provide us with a little bit more information on the serious complex cases that are driving up the High Court backlog?

Thank you. We have covered the amount of court time that cases take up—you gave the example of six days compared with three hours—but what about the time that it takes for cases to get to court in the first place? That has an impact on victims, witnesses and accused individuals. You touched on that in response to my earlier question, but could you delve a little bit deeper into any evidence of contributing factors that you have found?

Thanks very much, convener.

We have already heard quite a lot of views on deliverability, but I want to dig down more into the question of whether the transition timescales are appropriate and whether they reflect some of the urgent issues that you are all facing, such as the need to remain competitive and the need to adapt to climate change and the extreme weather that we are now experiencing. There is also the biodiversity question. Given that many operators—both farmers and land managers—are already addressing many of these things off their own bats and are not waiting for the funding to be in place, what are your thoughts on the timescales for transition?