Chamber and committees

Thank you. Tim Eagle’s question will address what happens if the approach in the plan does not work.

It also gives me the chance to comment. Anecdotally, there are more constituents like yours, who have concerns about data capture, but, given the difficulty in changing the mythology that the marine directorate uses to calculate the health or otherwise of our rivers, they no longer come forward to suggest that we annul the instrument. However, that does not mean that there is no desire to see methods changed.

The robustness of the data is incredibly important. As we know, the present system across Scotland is generally based on rod catches. More fish tend to be caught in rivers that are fished more regularly and heavily, so they are graded higher. A good example is the River Luce in Galloway, which supports a healthy salmon population, by modern standards, that is. Whether it has been healthy historically is not clear, but it is a category 3 river. That is mostly because of the light angling effort on the river and the fact that the owners of the fishing rights only allow fly fishing, so far more fish probably get away than are caught compared with other rivers.

With a falling angling effort because of less angling, and also because of climate change affecting weather conditions, including causing droughts, it means that river gradings will be less accurate.

The national electrofishing programme for Scotland—NEPS—was developed by the marine directorate and widely welcomed. It started in 2018 and ran again in 2019. The programme did not run in 2020, because of Covid, but it was run in 2021 and 2023. It has not been operated in 2024 or 2025, due to what I understand to be a lack of funding.

There was wide recognition that NEPS was a good project that involved many trusts and those with an interest in rivers working together with the marine directorate to get a more accurate picture. That was considered along with fish counters. We heard in previous evidence sessions that the marine directorate recognised how important fish counters are. I am concerned that there has not been a roll-out of fish counters to make the data more accurate. There are also concerns that the NEPS project has not been restarted and is not attracting funding. It could remove some of the reliance on rod catch data, which is not as good as it may have been in the past.

That is certainly a question that we can ask.

From my memory of it, there was an understanding that fish counters would be rolled out more generally, because they were seen as a very effective tool for accurate data collection.

My suggestion is that we follow up this agenda item with a letter, asking specifically about the roll-out of fish counters and, potentially, the continuation of the NEPS scheme. As part of our legacy report, which we will be dealing with at the end of March, we should have a specific section referring to the on-going problems that have been raised with this committee. The future committee should consider that and potentially do a bit of work that we have been unable to do at this time. Is everybody happy with that?

Members indicated agreement.

Good morning, and welcome to the second meeting of the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee in 2026. Before we begin, I remind everyone to turn their electronic devices to silent. I put on the record that Emma Harper joins us remotely today.

The first item on the agenda is an evidence session on the Scottish Government’s draft climate change plan. This week, we will focus on the agricultural chapter of the draft plan by taking evidence from two panels of witnesses.

First, we will hear from a panel of stakeholders from the agriculture sector. I welcome to the meeting Emma Patterson Taylor, project manager, Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society; Donna Smith, chief executive, Scottish Crofting Federation; Lorna Scott, senior policy manager for climate, land and business, NFU Scotland; and Nim Kibbler, Scotland manager for the Nature Friendly Farming Network, representing the Scottish Agroecology Partnership.

Edward Mountain MSP will join us later in the meeting, and he will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of our questions.

As always—sadly—on this committee, we are limited in time. I therefore ask members and participants to be succinct with their questions and answers. I remind witnesses that they will not need to operate their microphones, as a gentleman will do that for them.

I will kick off with a fairly broad question. Emissions from the agricultural sector have broadly remained stable since 2020, despite earlier predictions of decline. What is the main reason for the gap between policy expectations and on-farm outcomes?

Your organisation said that the budget “falls short”.

I put the same question to Emma Patterson Taylor. Do you have any confidence that the gap between policy ambitions and on-farm outcomes when it comes to climate change will narrow?

I am going to come to other members, but Emma Roddick has a supplementary question.

Thank you. I will move on to a question from Ariane Burgess.