Seòmar agus comataidhean

I am happy to follow up in writing, but I will say that a number of pieces of work have been undertaken. The recent avian flu outbreak has been the biggest we have ever seen. We have lost a third of the world’s Svalbard barnacle goose population, and we have lost more than 7,000 gannets—5,000 from the Bass Rock alone.

Yes. It is horrifying to see what has been going on.

In relation to domestic flocks, work is being carried out by the Animal and Plant Health Agency to consider changes. For example, we do not ask people to register birds if they have fewer than 50, so that work is considering whether we need to change that. The aim is to learn lessons from what we have been through in relation to domestic flocks.

NatureScot has a task force on wild birds. I will provide the committee with more information on that, because it provides fortnightly updates on the work that it is undertaking.

I give the assurance that we are looking to learn from the situation. It is hard to intervene, especially in relation to wild birds, but we must take whatever action we can—if not to prevent such outbreaks, then at least to manage them as best we can.

We ran the survey over the summer and it closed at the end of August. As George Burgess said, we had a strong uptake—I think that about 1,000 people took part, which surpassed our expectations with regard to planned uptake. That was really positive. The information will inform the next stage as we test the actions that we will take forward. As we look to carry out a more intensive pilot of that work, we will think about what conditionality might look like, the tools that we will need and how we standardise those tools and make improvements. The survey has informed that work.

There is a member of the Scottish Crofting Federation on the ARIOB, we will be undertaking specific events in relation to the agriculture bill, and crofting legislation will come further down the line. I realise that a lot of pieces of legislation are coming together and are interlinked, so engagement will be really important. I have talked about some of the sessions and consultation events that we will be holding, and we will try to use those networks whenever we can to spread the word as much as possible, so I hope that we get the strong engagement that we need.

That is where our engagement process is important. We want to ensure that all affected stakeholders are involved in the consultations, including coastal communities, which will be impacted given the very fact that the industries are based there. In addition, various industries will be affected by the HPMA process. Beatrice Wishart mentioned concerns about the spatial squeeze and what that means for fisheries interests, for example. We want to engage as widely as we possibly can, which is where the processes that we have set out will be very important.

I think that Allan Gibb wants to come in on that.

That is an important question. First, we encourage everybody to take part in the consultation, because we need to make sure that we hear those voices and that everybody takes part. I would also highlight to the committee the engagement events that we will hold on the consultation; I am happy to send more details when all the sessions are confirmed, but they mean that people will be able to ask us questions if there is anything that they want to go over. I will send that information to the committee once we confirm all the venues and details over the next wee while.

The consultation will be important, because the issue will affect our food production and how we produce food. It will affect how we can enable farmers, tenant farmers and crofters to undertake actions to reduce their emissions and enhance biodiversity. It is also important not just for our rural economy but for people across Scotland, because food is such a fundamental building block. This is an important consultation—I cannot stress that enough—and it is important that everyone takes part.

You might think that that is a straightforward question, but, unfortunately, it is not so at this moment in time, because the scheme itself is demand led. We have opened the first claim window for carbon audit, and we will open the second window for soil testing in the autumn. Therefore, it is not possible for me to put an exact figure on the amount that has been spent this year.

As you have mentioned, we have £51 million over the course of the three years of the programme, £10 million of which has been allocated this year. I am happy to keep the committee updated as we move forward. I believe that we will have future sessions to talk about the budget, and I might be able to give a more considered response then.

I completely agree with your first point. I certainly hope that we are not demonising the industry. It has felt demonised, which I do not think is fair at all.

On the proposals that we have made and the changes that we are looking to make, a key point is that we have committed to maintaining direct payments, but we are moving to 50 per cent conditionality. That is set out in the enhanced part of the framework that we have put forward in the consultation.

Another key part of the new framework in the consultation is its flexible nature and adaptability. We must recognise not only that challenges are coming down the line, but that there will be a lot of innovation. Technologies could emerge that we are not aware of and which we do not use at the moment, and we need to build into the framework the flexibility to deal with such technological advances and advances in science and research. We must have a framework that can be adapted in the future, that is less rigid than what we had before and that is less limiting than is currently the case.

Through the consultation, we are looking to give ourselves the enabling powers to tackle some of those issues and to build in conditionality in a way that we cannot do at the moment. I can give an example of that, which concerns the proposals that we have put forward on animal health and welfare. At the moment, we have the ability—indeed, the specific powers—to compensate people if there is a disease outbreak; however, we do not have powers to standardise what the minimum requirements for animal health could or should be, nor do we have powers to enable us to fund certain elements of that. It is really important that we have such powers.

Another important element of the proposed agriculture bill that has attracted less attention than the issue of what a future payment framework will look like—which, rightly, has been a significant concern—is the modernisation of tenancies that is being considered. From visiting various farms, I have heard about the inability of some farmers to diversify or to consider measures such as tree planting to enhance biodiversity. We want to make it easier for everyone to play their part by taking action in that area. There is a host of important proposals on waygo provisions and rent reviews that are intended to modernise agricultural tenancies.

It is vitally important. It is absolutely critical—there is no question about that. Of course, we are operating in a completely different environment from the common agricultural policy, under which we had a seven-year multi-annual budget, so we knew what was coming and could plan for that period in advance. We now operate in a very different environment in which we do not have clarity for that period of time, which makes things more difficult.

It is a priority for me and for the Government to ensure that we have a resilient food system and that we look at our food security.