Chamber and committees

I am interested in sections 25 and 26. Concern has been expressed to the committee that trustees’ duties to provide information to beneficiaries and potential beneficiaries under those sections are too onerous and that the extent of the duties is uncertain. Do you want to share your views on the provisions, particularly if you have concerns? I am interested in how you would change the sections to address those concerns.

I want to move on to section 61 of the bill, which gives power to the beneficiaries and others to apply to the court to alter the purposes of a family trust where there is a material change of circumstances. The section sets out the default position that that power cannot be used for 25 years. Is having such a 25-year restriction the correct approach? We would be interested to hear your views on that and your reasoning.

Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention?

It is another productive day—perhaps afternoon would be more accurate—for our food producers. Farmers and fishers are busy toiling to keep us fed and to fuel our rural economy. However, I am not so sure that the same can be said about us. Here in Scotland’s national Parliament, we go through the motions—literally, the same old motions—with little to show for it. Scotland’s rural and coastal communities have been poorly served in the devolution era, with decision making and decision makers more remote than ever before.

Unlike some members, I am not keen on quoting US founding fathers or Greek philosophers, but I note that it is often said that people get the Government or politicians that they deserve. Sadly, that is not true for our farmers or fishers and, in the case of my constituents, they have a Government that they did not vote for. Indeed, if our farmers operated to the same standard of productivity as this Government’s, we would all be very hungry. They do not need a task force or working group to get on with it; they make the best of what they have. They complain—my inbox testifies to that—but not nearly enough, because there is no doubt that the endless dithering, delay and denial of accountability of this Government cost them and make a difficult job harder.

I have said it before, but Jim Fairlie enjoyed it so much the first time that it is worth repeating: Scotland’s farmers are the beating heart of not just our rural economy but our way of life. They are central to food security and provide the one energy source that we cannot live without. They are the champions of our natural landscape and the true custodians of our environment. As I said before, the good news is that Scotland’s farmers are up for the challenge.

That demonstrates the point that I was making. Jim Fairlie has made the same intervention that he made the last time I spoke on the subject. As I said then, the trade deals with New Zealand and Australia offer advantages to Scottish farmers, with whisky tariffs coming down. As far as I am aware, a significant amount of grain that is produced in Scotland goes into those products. If we sell more of them, there will be more opportunities for Scotland’s farmers.

The SNP is so interested in self-isolation that it wants to put up yet another border with our biggest trading partner and bar the most important market for our farmers—it is laughable. That is how we know that the Scottish Government is not really behind our farmers.

We should be in no doubt about the fact that our farmers will find a way to survive and to manage and overcome the challenges that they face, but that should not be enough for us. In a country that has as many opportunities and as much agricultural potential as Scotland has, we should be looking to help our farmers to thrive, rather than talking them down and using them as a political football.

Farmers should be the SNP’s first partners when it comes to driving change and its aspirations for rural Scotland. Sadly, that is not the case. In their seats in the Scottish Government sit the so-called Greens, whose answer to everything in the countryside is to ban it. I was probably unfair the last time I spoke on the issue, because it was discourteous to ask the Greens how you eat a Sitka spruce when they were not here to tell us. Obviously, that would involve them leaving the comfort of their Edinburgh wine bars. However, I have many farmers in Dumfriesshire who would be very happy to host them for a demonstration—not the kind where you hold up a banner, shout or glue yourself to a cow. What they are looking for is for the people in power—those who hold ministerial office—to face up to the reality of what their policies mean on the ground.

As good agricultural land in my constituency gets carpeted in commercial forestry, with no balance being provided and no thought being given to local communities, let alone to our ability to feed ourselves as a nation, the many excuses and diversions in the Government’s motion ring hollow. The idea that, somehow, Westminster or Brexit are to blame for all the struggles in our rural sector is a myth.

I recognise that there are challenges for farmers, and that that is one of them, but I do not accept what SNP members, including the former Deputy First Minister, have said about food inflation. I used to think that Mr Swinney was a serious politician, before his transition to back-bench flunkey, in which role he has tried to suggest that the biggest challenge when it comes to food inflation is the action of the UK Government. It is well known that there is high food inflation across the rest of the UK.

I am dealing with the previous intervention, but if there is time, I will give way to Mr Swinney.

I say to Gordon MacDonald that I will not take lectures on leaving the EU from a party that, despite being so wedded to the EU, when opportunities such as gene editing come up, will not even listen to the EU’s advice. Nor will I take lectures from urban MSPs who tell me that leaving the EU has been universally bad for our farmers, when farmers in my constituency have been pleased to have their less favoured area support payments restored.

Our coastal and rural communities know that the Brexit and Westminster myth is exactly that, because they have lived through this urban central belt anti-countryside Government’s attacks on their way of life every day.

They see how fishing and farming are under attack.

They see the fall in populations where lack of housing and poor infrastructure mean rural clearances by stealth and by design and they do not appreciate motions like today’s, which suggest that the problem lies somewhere else.

Will the member take an intervention?