Chamber and committees

That has been one of the challenges in peatland restoration. Fundamentally, we have had to build a new industry and ensure that we are investing in and building capacity for the sector in order to meet not just the targets that we have now but our ambitious targets to 2040, which we have already talked about.

Tim, do you have anything more to add in relation to the skills element, in particular, and some of the work that has been happening there?

We have been looking at and considering that. At the moment, peatland restoration is 100 per cent funded through the Scottish Government, and we need to look at other models of finance such as private finance, because I do not think that we can rely solely on public funding to do everything that we need to do, whether it be in relation to peatland or other areas. In our modelling, we have been looking at Government funding covering about 90 per cent of the costs, and the other 10 per cent coming from private finance.

There is also our peatland code to take into account, because we want to ensure that, if we do get private finance, that sort of investment is done with integrity, in a responsible way and in accordance with the natural capital market framework that we published towards the tail end of 2024.

I will touch on some of the points that I made earlier. Our approach is not only to encourage restoration; it is about how we protect some of our peatlands. We considered that when applying some of the conditions to agricultural support.

We need to involve everyone in the agricultural reform programme to ensure that we are linked. I give the assurance that, as we develop future support, we are not working in silos, and we are considering how we can provide support in an integrated and coherent way. Officials are involved in the agricultural reform programme and very much having such discussions at the moment.

That is why a project that I have touched on in previous responses will be critical, because the Flow Country Partnership looks at those exact issues. Tim Ellis might be able to say a bit more about that.

Where we can make the system easier, we absolutely will, and we constantly look at that through the forestry grant scheme. Encouraging more small-scale planting and integrating it on farms is also why we increased the grant rates for such work, in recognition that we wanted to incentivise that as well. Brendan Callaghan might want to add more on that particular point.

I acknowledge the frustrations that have been expressed by some stakeholders, and I appreciate that there is always an ambition to go further and to do more. However, it is important to remember the overall context and the position that we have been in since the last plan came out and to consider everything that has happened in that time.

For a start, we left the European Union and we committed to having a period of stability and simplicity for our agriculture sector, which I think was the right thing to do. We needed to bring forward legislation at that point so that we could, through retained EU law, continue the basis for making payments to the sector. Of course, we then had to design a new framework for what support would look like, carry out a consultation on that, and introduce legislation to give us the powers to implement that framework, which we will need for the future.

That work has taken a bit of time, but I believe that, between that and the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Act 2024, we have been building those foundations, particularly with the policies and proposals in the plan relating to our tenant farmers’ ability to play a part in addressing climate and nature issues, as well as the support schemes that we have. We have also been building that foundation through the land reform legislation that was recently passed by the Parliament.

We have been using the time to build those strong foundations, to undertake engagement with the industry and to work with other stakeholders. After all, when we design future policy, we want to ensure that it works for our farmers on the ground.

There is another reason why I would not say that things have stalled. As the committee will, no doubt, be aware—I know that the Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity has appeared before you to talk about these things—there are other changes that have been implemented or that will be coming into effect. We have seen the whole farm plan conditions, ecological focus areas will be coming into play, and there are the conditions in the Scottish suckler beef support scheme.

We are seeing more action being taken, and we have also published as much information as possible on schemes that are changing and on some of the measures that we might look to introduce in the future through our agricultural reform route map. This is all about building strong foundations in the coming years, so that we can ramp up progress in the next period of the plan.

We are now 13 per cent down from the overall baseline of emissions in 1990.

That is potentially down on what the projections were from the point of the plan in 2020, if that makes sense.

We can send the information to the committee, if that would be helpful.

Our focus is, quite rightly, on delivering the policies and proposals that have been set out in the plan. I emphasise that the figure of 45 per cent uptake of measures by 2040 was based on robust research commissioned through ClimateXChange and delivered by Scotland’s Rural College. It is challenging, but the research sets out that it is believed to be achievable.

Right across Scotland, many farmers and crofters are already undertaking positive measures in relation to climate and nature, such as the use of sexed semen in dairy animal health measures and the reduction in calving intervals. Some suppliers in the market are also instigating such changes. My focus is very much on delivering what we have set out in the climate change plan, rather than working in the meantime on back-up policies, if you see what I mean. It is also important to remember that we have to monitor and provide annual updates on our progress and our targets. There will be another plan in five years’ time, so we will have to look at it very closely to ensure that we are continuing to deliver on the ambitions that we set out in the draft plan.