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Thank you for highlighting that. We have ambitious targets for peatland restoration. We have £26.9 million available for the coming financial year. That figure was published in the 2024-25 budget. That is a 1 per cent increase on the budget that was available last year, and it means that we should be able to plant at roughly the same level.

The approvals that are coming through for the financial year 2023-24 are for almost 10,000 hectares of planting, which I believe will ensure that we utilise the available budget.

That has been the focus. There have been some issues with peatland restoration because the industry is in its infancy. There is limited availability of contractors and restoration can take place only at a certain time of year, so trying to overcome those challenges and build up the skills pipeline has been a key focus.

We fund peatland restoration through the peatland action programme, which funds five bodies to take part in that work, but that is not the only funding that is available. There has been a big focus on skills to ensure that we enable the industry to grow to meet the challenges and to provide the scale of restoration that we will need.

Simon Fuller might want to come in to clarify the points that I have made, but I believe that, with the budget that we set out last year, the scale of restoration that we expect to see and the approvals that we have in the pipeline, the available budget for peatland restoration will be utilised. Simon might be able to provide further clarification.

I am sorry—I was not able to unmute myself. Biodiversity obviously cuts across my and the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition’s portfolios quite strongly. We have outlined in previous responses the natural resources element of the budget and the specific areas that that funds.

There are probably a number of budget lines in my portfolio where we are taking action on biodiversity, not least in relation to agriculture.

Yes, I can. I hope that you can hear me okay, convener.

AECS is an important fund for us. Out of all the funds that we have, it is the one that delivers against the objectives on climate mitigation and the nature enhancement activities that we want to see. It is also one of the key mechanisms that we have for increasing the amount of land that is farmed organically, and it has been very successful in that regard.

In previous years, we have had to restrict certain rounds or restrict the things that we are looking to fund within that, because of various financial constraints that we faced. In the current budget—remembering, of course, that AECS contracts are essentially rolling ones year on year—just over £16 million of the AECS allocation will go on previous year’s contracts that have been agreed. With the remainder of the budget that we have for AECS, I believe that we should be able to finance the vast majority of applications that came through to AECS this year.

AECS is not the only funding mechanism we have that can help deliver the climate and biodiversity enhancements that we want. We have the greening payment. We have the nature restoration fund, which sits within not my portfolio but the net zero, energy and transport portfolio. We have the farm advisory service. We have several other pots that still contribute to the overall objectives, even though they do not sit under the AECS umbrella.

Yes. We are still to announce the outcome of the applications for the 2023 round. We are going through the budget discussions at the moment, but, as I said, through the funding that we have allocated in the budget, we expect to be able to fund the vast majority of the applications in the 2023 round.

Yes, I will be having those discussions with the Deputy First Minister. You are right that the £15 million is part of the £61 million deferred funding that has been returned to the portfolio and that we have had the agreement to switch to capital funding. That remains and means that we have £46 million outstanding. The Deputy First Minister has confirmed that that will be returned to the portfolio, but the sequencing of that and how the money can be utilised is subject to further discussion. I am happy to keep the committee updated on that.

The £46 million is still to be returned, so that would be in future years’ budgets.

If you have particular concerns that are being raised with you, I am more than happy to look into that. It is not a concern that I have had raised directly with me. You will be aware that the Minister for Energy and the Environment has responsibility for crofting, and I do not know whether that issue has been raised with her.

With some of the crofting schemes, we look to make improvements where we can. If you look to the croft house grant as an example of that, we have increased the grant rate for that and we have also looked at introducing measures for energy efficiency that did not exist previously. If there are adjustments that we can make within that or if that is something that we need to look at, I am more than happy to follow that up with the Minister for Energy and the Environment and consider it further.

Again, Dave Signorini will have more detail on that. It is fair to say that there has been a fair amount of transformation in the marine directorate, with a focus on reducing costs where possible.