Thank you. That was very simple.

Our second item of business is a decision on taking items 7 and 8 in private. Item 7 is consideration of the evidence that we will hear on the appointment of the Scottish land commissioners and the tenant farming commissioner, and item 8 is consideration of the committee’s work programme. Do we agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

“Clear as mud,” is the expression, I am sure, Douglas. Monica Lennon wants to come in.

It is always the short ones that cause the problem when it comes to legislation. I think that I am right in saying that, basically, the Scottish Government is reserving its right to use EIAs if the UK goes with EORs, that there is no intention of dumbing down the process or making it easier, and that the standards will remain the same. That is what I take away from what you have said. Have I got that right?

Okay. I will not dwell on that any more. However, the matter is quite complex and intricate, and I am not sure that I would have used the words “concurrently” and “after consultation” to make it easier to understand. I have made my point.

The next item on the agenda is a debate on motion S6M-15261, which calls on the committee to recommend the approval of the draft order. I remind the committee that only the cabinet secretary and members may speak in the debate.

Deputy First Minister, I invite you to move the motion and to speak further to it if you feel that you would like to.

Motion moved,

That the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee recommends that the Scotland Act 1998 (Transfer of Functions to the Scottish Ministers etc.) Order 2025 be approved.—[Kate Forbes]

In case those who are in the chamber now were not here when I intervened earlier, I remind members that I am a partner in a small family farm in Moray—a small family farm meaning one that is less than 500 acres and that is going to get hammered by the tax brought in by Labour.

On 23 June 2016—unless I got that wrong—Brexit was voted on and it was decided to go. That was eight years ago. I cannot remember how many debates in this chamber I have had on Brexit, but they seem to all be on a Thursday afternoon when we could be more reasonably talking about interesting things such as the A9 and why transport policies in the central belt and in southern Scotland were prioritised over rural areas in the north of Scotland. We could be talking about hospitals and the lack of them, or dentists and the lack of those, or the impossibility of finding any.

We seem to be stuck eight years ago, without having moved on. Although I do not deny that there have been some challenges, industry as a whole has tried to move on, as it fully understands that one cannot just sit there and say, “I’m going to cry over spilt milk for ever in the hope that the cornflakes won’t get soggy.” The cornflakes are soggy and we need to move on—that is what industry is doing.

What annoys me when we talk about Brexit is that the Government and other members from across the chamber ignore all the other things that have been going on around the world. We have had Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, which have made a huge difference to rural Scotland—I am sure that the minister and the cabinet secretary will know that when Ukraine was invaded, fertiliser went up from a mere £230 a tonne to more than £1,000 a tonne, which affected every farm in Scotland. We have seen oil prices go up.

On the side, we have seen the SNP dipping into ring-fenced rural funds—that should have been going to the rural economy—to use them for other things. That is to say nothing of the various other things that have gone on, such as cuts to rural housing and tree planting targets, and a delay to the agricultural support scheme—I say to the cabinet secretary that I will be interested to see and fully understand what the new scheme involves, because, as a farmer with a lot of capital invested in that industry, I am still not sure that I do.

I would like to know when the cuts to transport and health will be stopped. All those things are crushing the rural economy and causing huge problems. Of the 200 Caithness mums who gave birth in 2022, only eight gave birth in Caithness; the rest of them were moved down to Inverness, because there were no facilities for them in the rural areas. Take my word for it that, when people look to move to and to stay in rural areas such as Caithness, that situation puts them off.

I want to talk about labour—first, about the Labour Party whose members are sitting opposite me, and then about labour. The Labour Party has made a huge mistake. I know that Mr Leonard, who is sitting at the back, laughs about the wanton attack on small family farms. It is all very well for Mr Leonard to laugh about it, but my small family farm employs three people and we have two families living in the countryside—be under no illusion that we will be affected by that taxation. I doubt whether I will be able to hand my small farm over to my son, and that gives me a worry. The tax gives every farmer in Scotland a worry, and I am not surprised about that. The Barnettisation of farm payments is a disgrace and will affect the rural economy. Everyone in the chamber has spoken against it—the Conservatives have always done so.

On labour as a whole, I tried to make the point with an earlier intervention that finding labour to work in rural areas, especially on farms, is extremely difficult. I know from personal experience that young people do not want to work on farms, which require an extraordinary amount of commitment. Farm work can see young people being asked to come out of their beds at 2 o’clock in the morning to calve a belligerent cow that will probably kick them in the process—they do not want to do that. They certainly do not want to be working hard at all times of night. A lot of young people nowadays expect to be able to work for four days a week in an office and take a day off. That has an effect on all the countryside. If people do not believe that, they only have to look round Edinburgh to see whether restaurants are open for more than four days a week—they are not, because they cannot find the people who are prepared to work five or six days a week.

Working on a farm is hard work. I understand Ariane Burgess’s point about finding people to pick fruit. Having done it, and having got dirt under my fingernails doing it, I can tell you that it is an extremely difficult task, which not everyone wants to do. In fact, I will be honest—it was such hard, back-breaking work, I never want to do it again. Finding people to do it in this day and age is really difficult. That is not a fact of Brexit—that is a fact of where we are.

To pick up on a couple of points that some of my colleagues made, Mr Eagle was right to say that slow payments to farmers actually put farmers off. Although I know that the cabinet secretary got a lot of the payments out early, we must remember that harvest came that much later in the year, so farmers will get paid much later in the year.

Some of the farmers have not received their harvest payments yet and are desperately relying on the single farm payment to ensure that they can invest in crops for next year. They want to be able to plan in the long term, which, as Mr Eagle suggested, is not unreasonable.

Mr Carson talked about rural homes, and I absolutely agree with what he said. Rachael Hamilton talked about the lack of housing, which is a key point for people in the rural economy, and also about the issue with the Barnettisation of farm grants.

We did not quite hear what Christine Grahame’s problems were, although she alluded to them. I think that the issue might have been to do with her speech notes or something else, but we will never know.

There are going to be problems if this Government wants to continue pushing the Brexit theme and not move forward. Let me be clear: even if the Government gets its way, which I do not think that it will, and Scotland rejoins the EU, doing so will be extremely expensive. It will cause incredible trade barriers with the other parts of the United Kingdom that do not; we will be forced to have the euro; and, be under no illusions, if the USA is going to employ trade barriers, the EU will be affected just as much as any other country.

In paragraph 138 of its inquiry report, the committee stated—based on evidence from Transport Scotland and the Scottish Government—that, since the promise was made to dual the A9 by 2025, transport projects in central and southern Scotland have been prioritised. Given that fact, will the First Minister be prepared to come up to the Highlands and meet campaigners and people on the ground to convince them that his word will hold true this time, when the Government’s word has not held true in the past?

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I am sorry to interrupt the member—I thought that I had pushed the button early enough.

When I spoke regarding employment in rural areas, I should have reminded members that I have an interest in a family farm in Moray. I apologise for not drawing that to members’ attention. I know that it is not the most important subject on some people’s agenda, but I should have pointed out that interest in a family farm.

On recruitment and staffing, does the member accept that, eight years ago, there was a completely different outlook on working patterns, which meant that people were prepared to work longer weeks? Since Covid, people now like to work a four-day week and have a day’s work at home, which means that many rural jobs, including working on a farm, are no longer suitable to many young people. That is why it is difficult to find employees.

I am slightly concerned that a disastrous and expensive computer system that was installed to distribute the basic farm payment scheme has caused the delays that we have seen. Can the minister confirm whether that is the case? If that is not the case, were any delays caused by software issues?