Seòmar agus comataidhean

Yes. I am sorry for launching myself into that question. I will touch on the point that Ms McAllan made about looking at the issue from a Marine Scotland perspective.

There was an increase in budget for Marine Scotland last year, specifically in relation to offshore wind. There has been a slight decrease in the overall marine directorate budget, but that is because a number of different recoupment controls and operational efficiencies have been considered for generating some of the savings that are required. There has also been a focus on maximising the income streams to the directorate. Obviously, revenues come into the directorate from commercial science activity, licensing fees and energy consenting fees.

It is also important to highlight the sheer scale of the work that the marine directorate undertakes. You asked about offshore energy consenting, which is a huge element of the work. Another vital component is our marine science and research. The directorate also has enforcement and compliance costs in relation to our fisheries and seafood.

I wanted to add some more to the context and to set out the overall budget position within the area.

The natural resources part of the portfolio helps to fund areas such as wildlife management, biodiversity and other areas within that. Simon Fuller could probably elaborate further on areas within that specific budget line, but that is largely what it covers.

That is largely because it more accurately reflects the spend within that element. The key point that I forgot to mention is the Atlantic rainforest, which Simon Fuller has just pointed out, and that is where we are continuing to invest. Parts of the budget have been underspent in the past, so what is set out in the published budget more accurately reflects what the spend will be within that area.

I certainly hope that we will reach that target, and we are doing everything we can to ensure that we do. If we look at the average restoration rates over the past few years, up until 2021, the average rate was about 1,500 hectares. From 2021 onwards, we have seen big increases in the level of restoration. That goes back to my earlier point about us trying to scale up the industry, which is still in its infancy. After 2020, we saw the restoration rate increase to 6,000 hectares. Then, in 2022-23, it was 7,500 hectares, which is a 35 per cent increase. This year, we are on track to see that increase further to 10,000 hectares.

We are moving in the right direction on restoration rates, and continuing with the investment is vital in providing confidence for the industry. We will continue that funding so that the industry can continue to grow and so that we can identify and deal with some of the issues.

I am sorry, but some of the figures that you have given for what we have already restored do not sound correct to me, although I do not know whether you are including this current year.

Ultimately, the commitment was for £250 million over 10 years to restore 250,000 hectares of degraded peatland. It is not possible for me to say at the moment what that will look like in five or six years. What I am trying to do today is highlight the importance of that continued investment, so that that trajectory can continue in the coming years.

Can you hear me okay now?

I do not know whether you caught any of the first bit of my response, but biodiversity cuts strongly across my portfolio and that of the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition. If you are looking to discuss specific funding and where the budget lines might be, I would refer you to a key budget line that we have touched on already—natural resources. In the agriculture element of my portfolio, around £30 million has been made available for our agri-environment work, and a large part of that is the agri-environment climate scheme, which relates to climate mitigation, adaptation and lowering emissions, as well as enhancing biodiversity. That is just one example.

Specific funds in the marine directorate contribute to enhancing biodiversity. Trying to tackle the climate and nature crises that we face is a key element of our blue economy vision, and in that respect, I would highlight the £14 million for the marine fund Scotland to support fisheries, seafood and aquaculture projects that will deliver on that vision. Specific projects with a focus on biodiversity can be funded within that.

We also have funding for particular species. For example, there is the wild salmon strategy, for which we have introduced an implementation plan, and we have provided about £1.5 million of funding to work through and support that.

No doubt the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition will say more about the nature restoration fund, but it has been critical to all that work, too. There are particular budget lines within my portfolio, but I would note that the funding for the wild salmon work has been enhanced by that fund, which involves planting further upstream. Farming and agriculture schemes have been funded through the nature restoration fund, too, but the net zero cabinet secretary might be able to set out more detail on that.

There is no doubt that the significant reduction in the forestry grant scheme in particular will have an impact, not least on our meeting our targets, as I set out at the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee last week and in my opening statement to this committee this morning. The funding that we have available for AECS runs on five-yearly contracts, and in that respect, between £16 million and £17 million of the funding is for previous contracts that have already been agreed. That said, AECS is probably one of our key schemes for delivering on our climate and nature ambitions, particularly in relation to agriculture, and the money that we have made available for the scheme will enable us to fund the vast majority of applications to the scheme during 2023.

However, there is no getting round the cuts to the capital budget, and given those cuts, I am not particularly happy as I sit in front of the committee today. At the start of the meeting, Ms McAllan set out the context of the overall budget and the situation that we are facing, and no doubt you heard the same from the Deputy First Minister last week, too. About two thirds of the funding in my portfolio is ring fenced. When we were members of the European Union, we had certainty of funding for a seven-year period. That funding was a mix of resource and capital, whereas the replacement funding that we get from the UK Government comes through only as resource, and it is therefore the capital element of the budget where we are facing significant constraints.

We are trying to manage that as best we can across the portfolio. We are focusing on and prioritising the key schemes that we know will make a difference, as well as ensuring that we maintain and build on momentum in relation to forestry and peatland. We are trying to do the best that we can within the budgets that we have available.

I completely understand the concerns that stakeholders have expressed. We were disappointed with the overall planting rate for last year, which fell far short of our expected targets. I held the woodland creation summit last December to try to get to grips with what the key issues were that had led to the situation, to consider how we could address them and to examine how we could scale up planting to get closer to meeting some of the targets.

Notwithstanding the issue with planting rates, and the budget pressures that we are currently facing, particularly in relation to woodland grants—as you have highlighted, that overall budget is down by 40 per cent—the summit was vital in helping us identify the challenges. It gave us a lot to build on and highlighted a lot of work that we could do. Undoubtedly, though, the situation means that we would be unable to meet our planting targets for the current year.

It is really important that, from now on, we ensure that we can still plant trees and get as many in the ground as possible. At the time of the summit, we had a record number of approvals in the pipeline—it was more than 13,000 hectares-worth at that point; I think that the figure is closer to 14,000 hectares now. We want to ensure that we are fully utilising the budget that is available during the current financial year. We need to do that for next year’s budget, too, and I know that there have been discussions with partners in the sector on how we can best utilise that and keep the momentum going as best as we possibly can.

Overall, within that context, we should not lose sight of the fact that we are still doing a huge amount of planting. In Scotland, we are planting 62 per cent of the total figure for the UK. Therefore, although there is no getting away from the impact of the budget, it is important that we do not forget the real progress that we have made when it comes to developing the industries and the sector and increasing the rates of planting.