Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you for making time to consider these draft regulations today. The regulations were laid using the powers that are conferred by the Agriculture (Retained EU Law and Data) (Scotland) Act 2020, which enable us to improve the operation of the assimilated EU law that applies to our common agricultural policy legacy schemes. They will do so by introducing the foundations of the whole-farm plan as a condition of the basic payment scheme. The whole-farm plan approach was co-developed with the industry and will support our farmers and crofters to take a holistic view of their farm or croft so that they will be clear about what they are doing and the impacts of that. They will have the information that they need to be more productive and profitable while reducing the impacts on climate and nature.

In 2025, businesses are being asked to undertake two plans and audits from a list comprising an animal health and welfare plan, a habitats report, a carbon report an integrated pest management plan, and a soil report. They are free to make their selection based on their business practices. I intend that, over time, businesses will undertake all the plans that are relevant to their activities, and I will work with them to that end.

The whole-farm plan provisions contribute towards the Scottish Government’s green conditionality objective for 2025 for essential conditions to ensure climate, biodiversity and efficiency conditions for payments, as set out in the vision for agriculture.

The regulations have been drafted to come into force on 5 March 2025, so that farmers and crofters can set out in a single application form which two plans they will prepare for this year. The single application form window opens on 15 March and is expected to close on 15 May.

This marks a significant point in our progress towards becoming a world leader in sustainable and regenerative agriculture. Failing to bring the regulations into force would undermine our progress and the efforts and work of many of our farmers and crofters who are already committed to making those improvements.

I am happy to take any questions that the committee might have.

Yes, support is in place. As people move into the system, they will develop what is suitable for their farms.

I absolutely agree with you on your first point, that we should not be having such conversations at the last minute. As I said, I am surprised that I got the letter when I did, because my understanding was that everybody understood where this is going. I got a letter with 16 questions and could not understand why it had taken so long. I absolutely agree with you, and I will be doing everything in my power to ensure that, as we take matters forward, we do not get sudden last-minute requests for a load of information that I had understood had all been dealt with and put to bed. I completely take that on board.

I do not necessarily agree that there is a lack of trust or that trust has been broken. It has certainly been stretched, and I will do everything that I can to repair that, because it is important. We will have to work out how we, as the Government, reach out as much as possible to the people who need to be heard.

However, that must be a two-way street—they need to be aware of the changes that are coming. In a previous meeting, I think that I said, “Please take this as notice that things are changing,” but I still got a letter within a week or 10 days of our laying the SSI. That is not a position that I want to be in, and it is not a situation that anybody else here wants to be in. I absolutely understand that Rhoda Grant, Emma Roddick and Beatrice Wishart have concerns around why the letter came at that stage.

I will do everything that I can to ensure that we get engagement far sooner, so that, when I come to committees with SSIs, we have an agreed position and everybody knows what is coming. They might not like it, but they accept that that is where we are going. That is the position that I would like us to be in. As I said, I am disappointed that we are here now with that letter from Donna Smith, which is why I made a point of reaching out as soon as I could to say, “You need to come in to talk to me—let’s get this sorted.”

I expected that we would be considering SSIs that would fill in the final document that would be the rural support plan. As for how that was going to be done, I was always confused about it when I sat on the committee, so I understand committee members’ concerns. This is complicated; it is not a simple thing to do. There are areas of legacy policy that we are trying to keep in place in order to ensure the stability that the farming community wanted us to give them and to ensure that they had payments coming to them. That must then be woven into what comes next.

This was always going to be messy—that is probably the easiest way to put it. That is fine; I do not mind it being messy so long as we get it right. That is the important bit. So far, we have had in-depth conversations and we have had disagreements, but I think that we are getting to a place where the policy is working for the farming community. It has been thoroughly scrutinised by the committee and the Parliament, and it allows the Government to work towards the objectives that we are trying to reach, which include maintaining a thriving food-producing agricultural sector in this country. It allows us to tackle our climate and biodiversity challenges and to keep on delivering food from this country.

Nobody in this room wants anything different from that. As for how we get there, I get that it is messy, but I think that we are on the right road and we are doing a pretty good job of it.

There were a number of questions in there.

Indeed.

You spoke about the First Minister’s announcements. Those policies are being developed. James Muldoon will be better at giving the detail on where we are with that at the moment, but my understanding is that it is about ensuring that the farming community has the opportunity to apply for funding that will allow farmers either to drive efficiencies or to support biodiversity and other climate mitigations.

I take your point, but I go back to a point that I made. If we just gave you the rural support plan and told you to get on with it, and then said, “By the way, you have to do all these things,” you would say, “But those things do not tie in together,” because we would not have gone through the process that we are going through.

You say that I am proud of ARIOB. What matters is not that I am proud of it but that it works. I assure you that there are some very robust discussions happening there. It has very good representation of farmers of all sorts—from arable, pork and crofting to upland and other livestock farming. They are all in there, along with others, including the RSPB. Everyone is represented there. However, as soon as you bring such a diverse group of people into one room, things will take time, because they are not all going to agree. We were never all going to agree on everything that we are trying to get out of this.

The rural support plan is the completion of all those things. Rhoda Grant made a point about putting the cart before the horse, but I do not think that that is the case. I think we need to build what we want and then, once we have all that together, that becomes the rural support plan that will allow us to go forward into the future. It will be what it is, and if changes are required, we will be able to make them as we develop. Things will change—we have seen that. The war in Ukraine shows us that things can change very quickly—we know that.

We had to have flexibility but we also had to work with the industry. This is about more than just ARIOB. You will all be aware that I have had a letter from Donna Smith. She has come back to us—very late in the day—to say that she has a whole list of questions for us. I have written to her to say that we will answer those questions but also to ask her to come in and speak to me. I want us to sit down and have a conversation about her concerns so that we can try to find the solutions that will allow us to make progress, because the crofting community is as big a part of the conversation as anyone else. For example, I think that Donald MacKinnon has been a member of ARIOB from day 1. He has taken part in the policy development process.

I am trying to make the point that, although you talked about ARIOB being a clique, I promise you that it is not. It consists of a broad range of people with a wide range of views, who are all pitching in with ideas, advice and arguments about how to proceed. The rural support plan will be the document that comes out of all that scrutinising and all those discussions. We hope to have one of the best support plans available, which, as well as allowing us to achieve our objectives, will allow the farming community to continue to produce food.

I did not say that it was a mess; I said that it was messy. Let us be clear about that.

I am trying to think of the right way to phrase this. The 70:30 split is kind of where we are already. The 30 per cent is the greening element and the 70 per cent is the base payment. The decision was taken to keep within those spheres at this stage. That does not mean that they will stay that way, but that is where the split is to allow us to transition.

To answer the first question, the 2024 act will be implemented this year. We will use both acts as we introduce new legislation. If it is a legacy matter, the 2020 act will be used; if we introduce new provisions, the 2024 act will be used. That will be the process.

Everybody recognises that coming out of the EU was a fundamental shift for all of us, because we had worked with the common agricultural policy for the period of our membership and we are now working with a completely new system. That shift has had to be made in conjunction with the industry, the sectors that are affected and the Government to allow everyone to get into the position that we are now in. We are now in a fairly positive place in that we are delivering on the objectives of the policies that the Government has set and on the farming industry’s requirements. The issue is how we will work as a community to deliver the outcomes. I hope that that answers your question.