Chamber and committees

To go back to Mark Ruskell’s question on retrospectively considering areas where we have not aligned, I want to look at how the Government defines “where appropriate” in relation to alignment in the statement of policy. The statement says that Scotland will seek to align with the EU

“where appropriate and in a manner that contributes towards maintaining and advancing standards”,

protecting health and wellbeing and maintaining our international standards, none of which anyone would disagree with. Will the minister unpack a bit of how the Government interprets that appropriateness, and who is final arbiter of that?

I imagine that there are two principal reasons why it may not be appropriate to align: first, where we are bound by UK law and it would be therefore unlawful for us to deviate from UK standards; and secondly, where it might significantly disadvantage our citizens for whatever reason because we are trying to compete in an EU market and in a UK market and so on.

Could you outline that, although I fully understand that, if we were a part of the EU, those questions would not emerge, because we would not have to define appropriateness?

That sounds very political.

I have a tiny supplementary question. It is well known that farmers typically make a loss without Government subsidy. Can you ever envisage a situation in Scotland in which farmers are sufficiently recompensed by the market so that they do not make a loss?

I am slightly concerned that we may be losing sight of the fact that the issue before us is snaring rather than the validity or otherwise of certain sectors. If all sectors, whether that is conservation, agriculture or anything else, are agreed on the need for predator control, would a licensing scheme actually enable better enforcement? As Penny Middleton outlined, such a scheme would require people to jump through certain hoops rather than push the illegal activity further underground.

I, too, thank the witnesses for being here.

What we are scrutinising is an agricultural policy bill. Essentially, it is a bill to replace the common agricultural policy, so it is very much focused on subsidy—or some other word for that kind of financial support.

However, I want to go back to the issue of how you agree contracts with farmers, co-operatives and wholesalers, and what the process looks like. Jim Fairlie has already touched on the point about the percentage of the profits that go back to the producer. Some research from 2022 by the food charity Sustain suggested that on five everyday items—apples, cheese, beef burgers, carrots and bread—farmers sometimes make less than 1 per cent of the profits. That will have a direct bearing on where, for example, a subsidy should be set in order to sustain those livelihoods. How, therefore, do you reach agreement on pricing, volume and timescales?

I was also heartened to hear that some of your relationships go back 25 years, which suggests to me that they are mutually beneficial. Is that the norm, or is that rare?

Good morning, cabinet secretary. I want to extend the convener’s question on your engagement with representatives of Israel and of Palestine. Have you, or has the Government, had any conversations with ambassadors, consuls general and so on from the respective states?

I will also extend the convener’s question about refugees. The organisation Sanctuary Foundation, which is run by Dr Krish Kandiah, was instrumental in helping with the Ukraine resettlement programme, organising 29,000 people to pledge to welcome Ukrainian refugees. It is extremely keen to recognise the First Minister’s leading role in welcoming refugees from Gaza and to participate practically in turning that theory into reality. I know that the First Minister is aware of that. Do you have any comments on that?

If anything is true of this particular situation, it is that it is phenomenally complex. I think that all of us have been hugely devastated by the scenes that have unfolded; the thought that there are still Israeli children in captivity in Gaza right now—given concerns about their welfare, their care and their separation from their family—is just horrendous. Equally, I saw a video yesterday—we will all have been consumed by watching this—of a mother in Gaza gently rocking a baby covered in a white sheet.

If anything is to emerge from the current horror, it is the resolution of hostilities once and for all. Parallels have been drawn with other, fairly recent historical situations in which hostilities have been concluded and there is now peace. Of course, that requires states and Governments to be very careful not to inflame the current hostilities, and to make intelligent and strategic calls for action, both during the current war and beyond.

In the light of that, we can recognise that, as a devolved Government, we still have a power of intervention, as the people of Scotland look to us for leadership and to navigate the challenges. That leads us to a question.

In making statements or calls for action, what expertise can the Scottish Government call on, and what intelligence can it draw on? Are there people situated in Scotland who are experts in this field, and who can inform the calls from the Scottish Government, and therefore the First Minister and the cabinet secretaries, for particular interventions or actions?

I have a brief question. Minister, you have very kindly said that you will share data. It is important that we put on the record that that needs to be reasonable data—what the Government might reasonably have. Of course, with any change to the law there would be a requirement to monitor its effectiveness and so on. Is the Government considering what kind of data it would collate and how it would monitor the effect of this change? Given the conversations about predator control, in particular, and Jim Fairlie’s point around the well-documented challenges and dangers of shooting in some circumstances, it is important that the committee is assured that the Government will monitor the situation with quantitative data.

As the minister might agree, it is critical not to penalise those practitioners who are already concerned about wildlife crimes and who have a duty towards biodiversity and managing land well and effectively.