Chamber and committees

I heard your speech yesterday, in the debate on the programme for government, in which you discussed the renewable energy potential in your constituency and mentioned some of the developments and opportunities there.

It was interesting to go around the islands, because you are absolutely right that no island is the same as another; each has different challenges and opportunities. We are still at the early stages of our carbon neutral islands proposal, so we will of course be engaging with island communities and local authorities to see how we can take that forward. It is interesting to hear what you say about the different developments, such as the one on Tiree. In that regard, I would mention the tidal developments in Orkney. A lot is going on, and there is an opportunity for our islands to lead the way on tackling our carbon emissions and harnessing our ability to reach our net zero target. Again, we are in the initial stages of that work and I will keep the committee up to date on it as it progresses.

On the infrastructure fund, the islands programme has set out £30 million of funding over the course of the next five years. That work is split into three separate programmes for this coming year, on which £9.5 million is being spent. The islands infrastructure fund has £6.2 million to spend this year. Two projects have been allocated funding from that so far, and the rest of that will be distributed across the islands authorities. The islands communities fund, which is a £2 million fund, opened earlier, and we will announce the projects that have made successful applications to that soon. Further, over the course of the summer, I launched the healthy islands fund, which is a fund of £1.3 million.

Those funds recognise that island communities have had specific challenges throughout the course of the pandemic. The healthy islands fund will address an outcome in the national islands plan about improving the health and mental wellbeing of people on our islands. Through the communities fund and the infrastructure fund, we are looking for projects that will hopefully have an impact as we look to make the transition to becoming a green economy and that will create and help to retain jobs in island communities.

A lot of work is currently under way. Again, that will be a five-year programme of spend. Those are the allocations that have been made this year, but more will be coming down the line. We will, I hope, start to see those funds and those projects making positive impacts soon.

I will work closely with colleagues across Cabinet as well as with junior ministerial colleagues. There are a lot of areas of overlap in the marine environment and terrestrial environment policy areas, including on land use and biodiversity, and I already work closely with ministers and other Cabinet colleagues on those overlapping issues.

In previous roles that I have had in Government, I worked between two cabinet secretaries and there was a lot of overlap there. That relationship worked and it makes sense for us all to work together to meet the historic and demanding targets on emissions reductions and climate change that we have. That close working has been going on and will continue.

The fox control bill will be led by the Minister for Environment, Biodiversity and Land Reform, Màiri McAllan. The good food nation bill was in the programme for government and we will introduce that shortly.

Do you mean in relation to the committee consideration of the bill?

On the new agriculture bill and what we hope to achieve with it, ultimately we support active farming and will support the continuation of direct payments. It is critical that we continue to support food production. We have committed in our manifesto to shifting half of all funding for farming and crofting to conditional support by 2025. Farmers and crofters will be rewarded for their role in delivering wider biodiversity and environmental benefits.

The farmer-led groups considered conditionality and what that might look like for each of the different sectors, and what is clear from that work—although there were different suggestions about what it would look like—is that conditionality will mean reducing greenhouse gas emissions to the lowest possible level for every business and restoring and protecting biodiversity for our farmed landscapes. Those two objectives go hand in hand.

A critical element of developing our proposals for the bill is making sure that they are co-developed and co-produced. We want to make sure that we bring farmers and industry along with us throughout the process, which is why we established the agricultural reform implementation and oversight board, so that we can test proposals and ensure that we are working hand in hand when developing new policy. We hope that, by our doing that, new policy will be successful.

Absolutely. As I have said, we have to be very careful and keep a close eye on how things develop in relation to the internal market act and what is being proposed in relation to subsidy control. We continue to try to engage with the UK Government on those issues to ensure that our interests are represented and that we have the ability to create our own policy, but that can be very difficult when we are not provided with all the information that we need.

I am happy to do so.

As you mentioned, we have a legal duty under the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018 to take islands issues into account when developing or reviewing policies, strategies and services through island communities impact assessments. That is hugely important when we are looking to develop policy, and the assessments have been effective in identifying issues.

We continue to engage with communities and stakeholders, as part of the island communities impact assessments process, on a wide range of policies and services that are under development, including transport, health and various aspects of food and drink.

We also seek feedback throughout the process. If there is anything that we can do to update the guidance and toolkit, we will very much look to do that.

I am sure that the member is aware that the HIAL issue falls within the remit of the Minister for Transport, Graeme Dey, so I suggest that the committee contact him on any issues that you want to follow up. He will be happy to provide you with further information.

I know that the transport minister has been undertaking engagement in and around the issue. I would be happy to ask him to get in touch with the committee and to outline the work that is taking place, if you would find that helpful.

We know that a lot of work has already been undertaken. Unfortunately, we were unable to progress it in the previous session of Parliament. Although it is not in this year’s programme for government, we have made a commitment to modernise crofting law. We will look at all the work that has been done on it so far.

The committee will be aware that crofting legislation is complex. Future work on it will not be straightforward. The work that has been undertaken has highlighted difficulties in reaching consensus on key issues, some of which might seem to be simple. Building consensus on those issues will be key in driving the work forward. I assure the committee that the work that was previously undertaken by the crofting law group and the Law Society of Scotland will stand us in good stead when we commence work on crofting law reform. We are still looking for time for that in the legislative programme. Decisions about that will be taken by the Cabinet as it sets out the future legislative programme. I reiterate our commitment to modernising crofting law. We will take that forward.