Seòmar agus comataidhean

You will have seen the impact in the figures that have been published and in the statement that the Deputy First Minister provided to Parliament. It has been incumbent on us all to identify the savings that are possible within our portfolios, so that we can help with the cost of living crisis across Government.

As I said in my response to Alasdair Allan, we know that one of the key issues for the agriculture sector is cash flow, and that is why we listened and did what we could to bring forward the payments to as early a date as possible. That cash should help provide some security to the industry, but of course those pressures have not gone away. After all, all input prices, right across the piece, have risen. We know that people are struggling, which is why we have done what we can within the powers that we have to ease some of those issues. Again, however, when it comes to the meaningful interventions that can be made, we need to see action at UK Government level, too.

What you say about the situation is absolutely right. Of course, that is a concern. We are in the process of implementing the recommendations of our food security and supply task force, and we are doing what we can in that regard.

As I highlighted earlier, not all the levers to affect that are in Scottish Government control. That is particularly the case with regard to fuel and energy. Therefore, first of all, we continually make representations to the UK Government to see what other interventions can be made. However, I realise that, for some businesses, the situation is particularly acute, and I agree that, if we are unable to offer appropriate support, the viability of some businesses will be threatened, which will threaten our overall food security.

We also have a number of other forums in place. With the UK Government, we have the seafood industry action group, which enables us to meet industry representatives to try to address some of the challenges that we face. Some of the challenges predate the situation that we are in, but they have only been exacerbated by everything that has happened. For example, we know that the workforce is a massive issue. We need to ensure that, across the piece, we are taking action where we can to help businesses.

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.