My final question is a simple one. We have heard from industry on numerous occasions that some of the most vulnerable times are when young smolts are put to sea to be put into cages. They have soft skin and often need to prophylactically medicated before they go out, in order to give them long-lasting protection against sea lice. Let us say that a wild smolt from a river swims past a fish farm where there are sea lice. If the smolt picks up two or three sea lice, will it survive?

My problem is that there is no monitoring of wild fish when they go past fish pens, so we have no idea of the effects. I absolutely take your point that wild fish have always had sea lice on them. Animals have always had liver fluke and various types of worms, but the more intensively that they are farmed and the closer that they are kept together, the more they have to be treated for those conditions. If other animals have liver fluke and other worms, farm animals are more likely to pick those up in paddocks.

Looking at the salmon farming and wild fish sectors, what would be the one thing that salmon farming could do that would make the biggest difference to both of them getting on better?

I probably agree with you. If you look at the North Esk counts, returning smolts used to be about 25 per cent. They are down to about 2 per cent now, which indicates a wider problem.

You question whether people should be fishing for an endangered species. I know for a fact, because I follow the issue regularly, that, on the Spey, 96 per cent of salmon are returned—a very small number are killed. If salmon fishers should give up, could it not be argued that salmon farmers should give up, on the basis that they are probably damaging more fish than fishermen are?

Okay, so that is where you and I agree. I think that salmon farming should definitely continue—it is important—but, as a good neighbour, as far as salmon fisheries are concerned, you probably ought to look at the Government’s latest report on salmon fishing and the number of jobs and amount of money that the industry brings into local economies, which are probably as significant in remote areas as salmon farming.

I have read your report, which I think was published in May 2020. You will be as proud of it as I am of the Rural Environment and Connectivity Committee’s report, which had 65 recommendations. Do you think that I am right to be disappointed that few of those recommendations have been implemented?

Yes. I reiterate that I have an interest in a salmon fishing partnership on the river Spey, which relies on wild salmon. Those salmon migrate around Scotland’s coast as smolt, heading north. However, there are no salmon farms in the Moray Firth that could come into conflict with them.

I also declare that the salmon fisheries are normally members of salmon fishery boards, which represent proprietors’ interests. I am not on the board in my area—the Spey Fishery Board—although my partnership contributes to it, and I believe that the board contributes to Fisheries Management Scotland, whose chief executive, Alan Wells, we will hear from later. However, I have had no interaction with that organisation through the fishery board or through my role as a proprietor.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I wonder why you made that announcement just before I started speaking.

I am delighted to be speaking on the climate change crisis that we face. I do not want to spend my time blaming everyone else; I want to identify some of the problems that we face in reaching our net zero target by 2045.

As we rely on increasing amounts of electrification across Scotland, and not only from offshore and onshore wind, there are various things that we have to come to terms with, one of which is the increased amount of power lines and battery stations that we will need to have across Scotland. Only the other day, I was speaking to Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks about what is required. Of course, it does not tell us that, because it works to a 10-year plan and it does not make clear what is required in local communities. However, its answer was that, in 2045, the Beauly to Denny power line, which stretches through the middle of the Cairngorms national park, will have not one line, but four.

That is a major problem in remote and rural areas across Scotland where there are no power lines. They might face one or two power lines down the track, but there is only a certain amount of community benefit that communities will accept. Only a certain number of village halls can be built as a result of the benefit from wind farms and electricity companies. We need a bit more honesty from the transmission companies. My inbox is full of emails from people across the Highlands complaining about the arrogance of SSEN, which turns up demanding that power lines be put in but is not clear about what will be required.

I believe that the Government has a role in striking the balance of achieving net zero and getting SSEN to speak more constructively to communities.

Will the minister give way on that point?

I had to intervene on the issue of tree planting. Of course, we have hardly met our tree-planting targets in the past six years, so we are about 20,000 hectares behind where we should be. This year, we threw 10 million trees on the scrap heap because we cut the planting grants. Is the Government proud of that? Is it just going to say, “We are planting more trees,” but ignore the fact that it cannot reach its targets and is scrapping trees?

I do not think that it is necessary for the UK Government to step in and do that.