Chamber and committees

I emphasise that NPF4 is not about imposing developments on people and it is not bypassing any processes. Any developments that are proposed for rural areas will still have to work their way through the planning process, which, you would hope, would involve relevant consultation and provide the opportunity for communities to make their voices heard throughout. Again, we are not talking about bypassing any processes that we have in place at the moment.

Of course, there are the local development plans, which the minister has talked about, and local voices will be key in the decisions that are made about those plans.

May I come in on that point? There will undoubtedly be challenges, but NPF4 also offers a lot of opportunities for rural areas. I am keen to see the feedback from the engagement event that the committee had on Monday because it sounds as though a many valuable points and concerns came out of it. We are keen to address those as best we can.

There are really exciting opportunities that will enable communities to thrive in our most remote rural areas, especially through some of our blue economy developments. There are also renewables opportunities that offer the chance of exciting new industries that will create jobs, as well as what is being enabled through draft NPF4 and sustaining and ensuring that we have thriving rural communities in the future.

I am keen to hear about the challenges that have been expressed, but we cannot lose sight of the fact that there is also a lot of opportunity here.

In relation to the work of ARIOB, its terms of reference have been set out and we have been developing an immediate programme of work. That has been the board’s focus. I am happy to write to the committee to outline some of the work that has been taking place. It has focused on developing the immediate test programme that was announced just prior to COP26, and the immediate work in trying to roll out carbon audits and nutrient management plans, as well as a more detailed pilot to test what conditionality will look like for future payment schemes.

That has been the immediate focus of the work of ARIOB. It is also helping us to shape our future policy—we very much want to co-develop that, and the work of ARIOB will be critical as we look to the future. Of course, a number of pieces of legislation will be coming up in the coming years. We will have the agriculture bill, legislation on land reform as well as a natural environment bill. There will be a lot of crossover between those areas, not all of which I immediately lead on, so obviously we want to make sure that there is alignment. Wider questions may well come into some of ARIOB’s work, but we have not yet reached that stage in our future planning, because we have had the immediate focus on developing the national test programme and making sure that it is ready to launch.

We absolutely want to make sure that that read-across is there. As part of the engagement that took place in preparing for the draft NPF4, there have also been discussions with the Crofting Commission. These are not things that we are considering in isolation.

I want to emphasise that we are not setting out the creation of a fund through the regulations. The regulations simply set out the framework for funding and give us additional powers as to what we can look to fund—it expands the range of activities that we can look to fund.

We have had one round of the marine fund Scotland. We will look at the outcomes of that and at how the first year’s funding has gone. As we mentioned in the previous evidence session, a number of pieces of work are currently under way. We are working on our blue economy vision and action plan, and we already have our future fisheries management strategy. As we look to develop the criteria for future funding, we will make sure that that aligns with the visions that we will set out and with the different strategies that we will have in place at that point. We are not at the stage of establishing the criteria for that; the regulations simply allow us to fund a wider range of activities.

Yes, absolutely. In relation to the agri-environment climate scheme, the £36 million budget that is set out is our financial commitment for previous rounds of the scheme. With AECS, people enter into contracts for five years. We ran a limited round over 2021 and we extended contracts in 2020, so the amount that is set out for AECS in the budget is the commitment that we have already made to fund those projects. It is not possible for me to prejudge the 2022 round that we opened for AECS, for example, and say what the spend on that will be next year. I hope that that helps to explain why there can be variations in what that budget looks like.

You are absolutely right. That is why the business development element is so important. Looking at some of the funds that are listed, I note that the Farm Advisory Service has been critical in offering advice and support to farmers. That service will continue to be important as we develop future policy and embark on the transformation programme. We must have that source to provide advice and support to farmers and crofters as we go through this big period of change. There is also the knowledge transfer and innovation fund, which has been really important in helping to encourage innovation in agriculture. Again, that will be really important, given the climate emergency and biodiversity crisis that we face.

So much good work is already going on, but the funds enable us to kick-start specific projects, to tease them out and to look at things that might work or could potentially go on to be done at scale. Enabling such innovation and ensuring that we have knowledge transfer will be absolutely critical. We have certainly heard that from stakeholders as well.

You are absolutely right. On keeping pace, the Government has made a commitment to align with the EU and, potentially, go further where it is in our best interests to do so. Ultimately, we want to become an independent country and join the EU. We want to make that as streamlined a process as possible. In some policy areas, it will not always be possible to replicate like for like everything that happens in the EU. Some of it will not be relevant and some of it might not be legally possible. However, it is our stated policy intention to align with the EU as much as possible.

The specific policy that you talked about has been on-going for a number of years and we have already applied it in Scotland.

We do not have plans for legislation on fisheries management.

As you said, we are committed to working with Parliament to consider that scrutiny. I know that this committee and the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee have made representations on the approach that is taken in that regard. The Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture, Angus Robertson, will respond to those representations in due course.