Seòmar agus comataidhean

You are absolutely right. That was one of the things that shocked me when I looked at the information on the issue. The practice has been banned in the UK since 2003, and it does not generally take place here. There are other figures. For example, I think that 73 million sharks are needed to provide every 1 million to 2 million tonnes of shark fins that are traded. It is a cruel and horrendous practice, and the bill is an important step forward in trying to put an end to the trade and in discouraging the practice.

As I said, the discussions are on-going. We are looking at retained EU law with the UK Government in relation to what will be preserved. I cannot give a definitive response to that question now, but we will, of course, consider that issue.

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.