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I feel as though there is a similar picture with travel and subsistence costs, in that further explanation is perhaps needed. Those costs amounted to £280,000, which was 69 per cent under budget. That is quite a significant underspend. Again, it feels as though there is a bit of a trend. In relation to what your expenditure will probably look like in the year ahead, I am trying to understand why you requested quite a big budget that was then underspent.

The wider context is that, later in the meeting, we will come on to areas in which you are overspending. The overall budget seems to have quite a lot of flex in relation to underspends and overspends, but what you requested for travel and subsistence costs was clearly not what was needed. What was the story behind travel and subsistence? Again, it felt as though we had quite a clear understanding of where you were going in that regard last year. The return to in-person meetings and audit work was quite tentative, so I am interested in the story behind the figures.

Good morning. I would like to focus on some of the variances in operating costs. On rent and rates, for 2024-25, you requested 54.4 per cent more than you spent, and you spent only 14 per cent more than you spent in 2023-24. I remember that, last year, you gave the commission some quite granular information about your property costs and your strategy for accommodation. I felt that we had a clear picture of that, but your budget request does not match up with what you have spent. It feels as though that is a trend and that we come back to the same point year after year. I hope that I am not being too unfair, but the figures are quite stark in showing that you do not spend what you ask for. I am trying to understand the reasons for that trend.

You also mentioned systemic issues. Were any such issues identified through the scores of three that revealed poor quality?

Could I ask Douglas Lumsden to clarify something when he winds up? Is the amendment only about overhead lines? Over the years, I have spoken to a number of farmers who have gas pipelines going through their farms, and that has, at times, had quite a significant impact on the productivity of the soil. Sometimes it takes many decades for that soil to lose its compacted, degraded state and to return to productivity. I am not entirely sure where the fixation on overhead lines is coming from, given that lots of energy infrastructure can pass over farmland and might well have a significant impact on an agricultural tenant.

I reflect on the fact that the alternative to pylons is undergrounding, and in that case you are talking about motorway-sized trenches potentially going through sites of special scientific interest and special areas of conservation and running across riverbeds.

Energy infrastructure has an impact. I am just not sure why overhead lines are being targeted—well, I kind of know why they are being targeted, but I am just making the case. I am speaking up for the environment and the productivity of our farmland, which appears to have been ignored in the amendment, but maybe I am wrong.

Excuse me—I am choking on my sandwich. My understanding is that, in the past, there has been informal culling of goats in those communities. Despite the fact that this natural capital company is now applying for a formal licence to do this, my understanding, which might or might not be correct, is that there has, traditionally, been some culling of goats in the area.

Like the cabinet secretary, I think that you make a very strong case for having land management plans. I note that some of your Conservative colleagues are not supportive of the bill’s provisions on such plans, whereas Scottish Greens want to see them strengthened.

Oxygen Conservation has a number of estates around Scotland. For example, the committee has been to see the Invergeldie estate near Comrie, where community consultation is now on a better footing, as it is at Dorback estate in the Cairngorms.

When a new landowner with specific objectives comes into a community, they need to have an important conversation about species management and to carry out consultation with the community—with the people who have lived in the area for many years, who understand local traditions and the way in which land is managed there. The landowner needs to reflect that conversation in a land management plan. I think that strength comes from having such transparency.

If there are specific issues about culling, the number of animals that need to be culled, the traditions around that and the extent of it, those are exactly the issues that we need to see reflected in land management plans, and such plans really are a tool that can be used to crack them.

Convener?

Yes.

I am interested in your various sectors’ views on the proposed Rosyth-Dunkirk ferry. Could that be beneficial for trade? How might having an SPS agreement help with location of border control posts—or might it even make some of those posts irrelevant? Would it help with achieving frictionless trade? Would it help to get the case for the ferry over the line if the agreement were to be implemented?

On the point about cost reduction, are you disappointed that there was not, in the agreement, something on free movement of labour? Presumably—as you have already indicated, I think—free movement of labour benefits you in terms of jobs in processing and other jobs?