Seòmar agus comataidhean

The costs of the bill relate mainly to any additional powers that we would ask for in relation to the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland. It is not possible for us to quantify that cost at the moment without knowing how many potential cases might come forward. Additional training would also be needed. As I said in a previous response, as far as we are aware, there has been no trade since 2017, but, without knowing how many cases could come up, it is hard to put an exact figure on that.

I ask my officials whether they have anything to add in relation to that cost.

That has been one of the interesting issues during this process and in the discussions on the bill. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs analysis estimates that the impact on business would be in the region of £200,000. One positive thing about the bill is that it not only covers shark fins but prohibits the import of products that contain shark fins, such as tinned shark fin soup. It encompasses those products.

When you look at what we are doing in relation to agricultural transformation, you will see an increase in this year’s budget in comparison to last year’s. When you look at the overall climate change-related spend and what we are investing over this year, you will see that it is up £90 million on what we invested over the previous year. That covers the investment between our sustainable agricultural capital grant scheme and the agri-environment climate scheme.

I absolutely agree with you. We want to make it as easy as possible for people to take part and to be part of that transformation.

You touched on—other members might want to come in on this—carbon audits and the low uptake. We are really disappointed by the low uptake of the scheme so far, but that is why the work that we have been undertaking with the agriculture reform implementation oversight board—ARIOB—has been important in helping us to design schemes that are easy to access and offer the right incentives. I believe that we have provided that through the scheme, even though the uptake through it has not been what we would want to see.

This is the first year of the scheme’s operation. The committee might have suggestions as to how we can better communicate things. We have done our best to work with the various organisations and stakeholders to get the message out as far as possible to explain what help and support is available. I am happy to take any suggestions on how that could be improved.

Ultimately, the co-development and co-design process that we are working through for future policy is to help us get over some of the hurdles. We do not want to put up barriers and we do not want to make the transformation and some of the changes that we need to see difficult for our farmers and crofters. We want to make it as easy as possible, and that is what we are trying to do through the schemes.

As I said in my response to Rachael Hamilton, I am happy to write to the committee with more information on each scheme if you would find that helpful.

As I said in response to Rachael Hamilton’s questions, we know that there is strong demand, in particular, for capital items, which can make an impact. On what we want to transform, as we have outlined in our vision for agriculture, we want Scotland to be that global leader when it comes to sustainable and regenerative farming. We know that we need to do what we can to lower emissions and enhance biodiversity so, through that fund and through some of the other schemes that we have, including the agri-environment climate scheme, which I talked about, and various other funds, we are looking to encourage the uptake of various practices and to help fund the pieces of equipment that we know can have a big impact on emissions.

We will, of course, take all those factors into consideration as we develop the scheme and before we launch it. As I said, we will be happy to keep the committee updated with further information on that. That will be a big issue going forward. It would be great to have a bigger capital budget to allow us to invest more in that but, unfortunately, we are in the position that we are in with the capital allocations that we have received. In the current financial year, we have really tried to target funding where we think it would have the biggest impact on emissions reductions, and we will of course consider those factors as we develop the scheme.

No. I would be happy to provide a further breakdown of those figures. I am not rolling one thing into another. We have the sustainable agricultural grant scheme. The amount that we have put forward for that capital fund for the coming financial year is £5 million. The budget for the current financial year is £5 million as well. Over the past year, the focus of that fund has been spend on slurry spreading equipment and slurry store covers.

We have budgeted £5 million for the coming financial year, but we will, of course, provide more details when the fund and the scheme launches.

We will continue to do that, both within my portfolio and across Government. As you can imagine, however, given some of the inflationary pressures that I talked about, there is pressure not only on my portfolio, but right across Government. It is as I said in my opening statement: we cannot do everything that we want to do at the pace at which we want to do it, because of the pressures that we are up against.

I need to point out that, as part of that, we are not getting the full replacement EU funds that we were promised by the UK Government. What we are getting in replacement funds from the UK Government comes through as resource, rather than resource and capital, which is what we received when we were part of the EU. That adds more pressure to an already stretched capital budget, which, again, is why we have not been able to do everything that we want to do. We have seen that funding fall by 1.7 per cent for the current financial year—I talked about that in my opening remarks—but it has fallen by 12.7 per cent since 2021.

In the discussions with the UK Government after leaving the EU, we were meant to discuss how future allocations would work. However, despite continually raising that with the UK Government, those conversations have never taken place.

Yes. I am sure that George Burgess can jump in to provide the overall figures for that scheme and for the croft house grant scheme.

That is vital funding. We want to see the continuing development of crofting and to do what we can in that area. We know that there are particular challenges with crofting in some of the more remote and rural parts of Scotland. That is why, through the various schemes that we have, we are funding things that will increase energy efficiency for example, and it is why we are looking at home improvements. We are really trying to do what we can to help crofters through those schemes.

I do not know whether there is anything that you want to add to that, George.