Seòmar agus comataidhean

Bob, I commend you for your quietness throughout the meeting. Now the floor is yours.

We have run out of time, which is annoying, because I had one further question, but I will let the witnesses write in with a response, if they want to. At the beginning of this session, you all said that the bill would not create any more agricultural tenancies. I would like you to consider providing us with a note of what you think might create more agricultural tenancies. It would be helpful to get one idea from each of you. I would be happy to receive written answers on that after the committee meeting. If you crib Lord Gill’s words about making agricultural tenancies simpler, I will know where that has come from.

Thank you very much for the evidence that you have given this morning, which has been very helpful. We will look at the bill again after recess. At this stage, we are not quite sure when we will take it up again—that will depend on what happens with other legislation.

We will have a brief suspension to allow the witnesses to depart. If committee members could be back here at 11.25, that would be very helpful.

The next item on the agenda is consideration of a type 1 consent notification relating to a UK statutory instrument. On 29 May, the Minister for Climate Action notified the committee of the proposed UK SI. As with the previous item, the UK Government is seeking the Scottish Government’s consent to legislate in an area of devolved competence. Again, the committee’s role is to decide whether it agrees with the Scottish Government’s proposal to consent to the UK Government making the regulations within the area of devolved competence in the manner that the UK Government has indicated to the Scottish Government.

If members are content for consent to be given, the committee will write to the Scottish Government accordingly. In writing to the Scottish Government, we have the option to pose a question or ask to be kept up to date on relevant developments. If the committee is not content with the proposal, we can make recommendations, which I can go through. Before we do that, do committee members have any views?

I bring in Jackie McCreery briefly—you will literally get 30 seconds—before I move on to Mark Ruskell.

You are in charge of your questioning session, Jackie.

I have noticed that all of the witnesses are waving their hands at me. If you want to come in, look at the questioner.

If no other members wish to say anything, I would like to make a couple of observations. One is that when I got the bundle of committee papers for this week—there were 206 pages of them—I looked forward to reading the UK SI notification and to finding out instantly what it all meant. However, it took quite a lot of reading to get through it. I do not think that the Government’s briefing was helpful or concise.

I then looked at each of the species, some of which I had never heard of before. They include small Asian mongoose, which I am sure cannot survive here; coati, which is another form of mongoose; whitetop weed, which is sometimes confused with hoary cress in this country; and the water hyacinth, which has already been mentioned. My concern is the fact that things are changing quickly, climate wise, and we are seeing invasive non-native species coming into this country that are never meant to thrive, but do thrive.

The example I see from home is ranunculus weed. It was never an issue on the Spey, because that was always too cold and too fast flowing, but things have changed, temperatures have warmed, and ranunculus weed now is a major problem on the Spey. I declare an interest that I have a fishery there. It does not affect the fishery but it absolutely smothers out freshwater mussels, which are an endangered species.

We need to be really careful in what we are doing. Therefore, I support the committee’s recommendation that if we are going to approve this SI, which I am minded to do, we ask the Government to keep it under review and to look at the effects of the changes. In addition, if other species are going to come off the list in the future, the Government should make somewhat clearer what it is doing. There is mention in the paper that DEFRA was asked for a comment, but that is still forthcoming. We are making this decision slightly in the dark.

Those are my comments. If there are no other comments from the committee, I move to the substantive question. Is the committee content that the provision set out in the notification should be made in the proposed UK statutory instrument?

Members indicated agreement.

Is the committee happy for me to sign off the letter on behalf of the committee when it is prepared by the clerks?

Members indicated agreement.

My issue is that if you are valuing 500 ewes at Martinmas and they are all empty, the valuation is considerably less than if the ram has been put in and has been working and some of the ewes could be in lamb.

Sorry—one other thing. It is a long time since I did all of this and I am probably well out of date, but is it still the situation that incoming tenants pay the outgoing tenants for the benefits that they will accrue when they take on the lease or is it all straight at landlord level?