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Absolutely. You made an important point on the portrayal of a lot of jobs as “low skilled”. I refuse to use that term because—you are absolutely right—those jobs are highly skilled, and it does not help to portray them in such a light.

What I outlined and announced yesterday was on the back of the Migration Advisory Committee’s recommendation to develop a pilot scheme on rural migration. In February last year, our expert advisory group on migration and population published a report on options that could be explored when developing the visa pilot scheme. Three potential options were outlined in the report.

In looking at options, it is not as though we are doing something completely new. Different schemes are currently in operation throughout the world, and there are many different examples that we can learn from.

For example, one of the three potential options that are outlined in the report is a remote and rural partnership scheme, which is modelled on the Canadian Atlantic pilot scheme. Such a scheme would be employment based and would be part of a wider partnership with local authorities, employers, public services and the voluntary sector, which would play a more active role in identifying which areas and employers would benefit the most from the scheme, and would be engaged in delivering an integration plan. There are also proposals for a Scottish visa that look at how we can expand the skilled worker route.

We are keen to work with the UK Government in, I hope, delivering much of that. The previous Home Secretary had been willing to commit to that, so we hope that that commitment is delivered in full and that we get the support to continue that work. It is certainly the case that we are not standing still on the matter. We have lots of different ideas about how such schemes can work in Scotland’s best interests. I put forward just some of those ideas yesterday.

No, those proposals do not work. That has probably been shown by the numbers of people who have taken up some of those initiatives. We can look at this the opposite way round, and this is part of the problem with the visas that were given for certain occupations a few months ago. The visa for butchers, for example, was for about six months. Who is going to uproot their life for such a short period of time knowing that there is no opportunity to stay on beyond that period? That is essentially what we are asking people to do—to uproot their lives and move to another country. I do not think that a lot of people would find that to be worth their while for such a short window of time.

Some of the initiatives were for a few months only. When we analysed the time that somebody would be able to spend in the country by the time their visa application had been processed, we saw that it was somewhere in the region of six to eight weeks for some of the occupations for which three-month visas were proposed. Those are all short-term ideas that do not go anywhere near to addressing the crises that a lot of these industries face.

I know that a lot of sectors feel that there have been specific exemptions, such as for butchers, but those exemptions have not been applied to other sectors that are also facing critical shortages. That has caused a lot of concern.

There are a lot of outstanding issues. That is why we repeatedly call for these issues to be addressed. As we announced yesterday, some of the pilot work that we are trying to do ourselves is looking to address these issues in the medium or longer term. We want to work with the UK Government on solutions, but it takes both of us to be willing to look at them and to engage meaningfully. We are certainly willing to do that.

I do not think that there is any question that those issues might have been exacerbated by Brexit because it absolutely has exacerbated them.

You spoke about depopulation of some of our rural areas and islands. We have spoken in previous meetings about initiatives such as the islands bonds, the rural and islands housing plan and the investment in connectivity, and they are vital in trying to address the endemic issues that we face in those areas.

I engage with our stakeholders. I go out to speak with our farmers, our fishers and our food and drink businesses, and all I am saying to you is exactly what is being said to me about the availability of labour. At some point before Christmas, the Prime Minister was quite insulting when he said that all the jobs are low paid and people need to improve their working conditions, as if that would solve all the problems, which is not the case. It did not matter how much some of those businesses were offering; they were just not able to attract people to fill the positions.

We really need some meaningful interventions to address these critical issues in the immediate term. That is why we have repeatedly called for a number of different initiatives and for meaningful engagement from the United Kingdom to address some of these problems.

No problem. As I said, we welcome any additional funding that comes to Scotland, but the main problem is that it involves direct spending in a devolved area. We have our own set of priorities, but the UK Government will determine, according to its priorities, how it will spend its £100 million fund, on which we, in Scotland, have had no say even though it will affect industries and sectors that are critical to us. We have had very little involvement in the design and development of the fund, let alone any input into how it should be spent.

The concern, especially for our industries and stakeholders that would have an interest in the £100 million fund, is about duplication with the marine fund Scotland and what we are already trying to do. That causes confusion. Given that we are talking about a devolved area, we hoped and expected that the funding would be given directly to the Scottish Government, because we are best placed to determine how the money should be spent on our industries in Scotland.

I understand that the titles that we use in the budget sometimes do not do justice to what is involved. You have mentioned a critical part of the budget that, as you have outlined, will support business viability and competitiveness and will ensure that we safeguard employment in rural areas.

The budget heading includes a number of important funds. For example, it includes the Farm Advisory Service, the knowledge transfer and innovation fund, the food processing, marketing and co-operation grant scheme, the crofting agricultural grant scheme and the small farms grant scheme. The budget is providing support and ensuring that there is flexibility around transformation. We are also providing direct increases for a lot of those schemes, which will be critical as we go through the journey of transformation across agriculture, farming and crofting.

There is a provision for financial transactions within that, which supports the quick and early payment of farmers, crofters and land managers. There is quite a lot under the business development heading. Again, a lot of the funds are vital to the transformation programme that will be undertaken.

As I said in a previous response, the overall funding for the three enterprise agencies is at its highest level since 2010. With regard to Highlands and Islands Enterprise, the spending power that it has over the coming financial year has not been reduced. The budget has been protected as far as possible, because—as you said—the enterprise agencies have a particular role in supporting economic recovery across the different parts of Scotland.

The budget allocation was based on the agency’s forecast of its needs—it was the non-cash allocation that was reduced. Shiree Donnelly might be able to come in with more information on what exactly that means. The non-cash budgets are utilised for accounting charges such as the depreciation of assets and the needs that are set based on accounting standards.

The reduction in HIE’s non-cash allocation does not affect its ability to continue its work on improving business and community resilience and protecting and creating jobs. Shiree Donnelly might be able to offer more information on that.

Some of those issues are on-going in the EU, so we continue to monitor them. As members of the EU, we had the potential to set our own policies, and we had the ability to diverge, which did not cause any particular issues. For example, we had specific schemes in Scotland that did not exist elsewhere in the UK. It is those specific schemes, which address the specific constraints and types of land that we have in Scotland, that are now very much under threat as a result of both the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 and the Subsidy Control Bill. There is no getting away from the issues that we face in that regard.

I come back to the common frameworks process. That process helps us to manage divergence, because it is only fair, given that the powers and the responsibility rest with the devolved Administrations, that it is up to those Administrations, which are elected in those countries, to take the policy decisions that work best for the populations that they represent. It is up to me to deliver on the commitments that we have set out in our manifesto and on what we have set out in the programme for government. All that we want is the ability to carry out that work.

As I highlighted in a previous response, agricultural policy is taking a different road in England from the route that we have set out to take in Scotland. We have made different commitments, and that is where the fear of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 and the Subsidy Control Bill comes in, because those pieces of legislation could well constrain our policy choices in the future.

One of those choices is to maintain direct payments, which the UK Government has said it will phase out. Again, the Subsidy Control Bill could have a serious impact on our ability to do that, or to offer payments through the less favoured area support scheme or some of the coupled support schemes that do not exist elsewhere or in which there might be policy divergence in the future.

It is about those pieces of legislation together. Ultimately, we are finding that it is huge step backwards from being in the EU, where we had those powers and the freedom to exercise those powers in developing our own policy. The 2020 act and the Subsidy Control Bill remove those powers and put them in the hands of UK ministers, which—as I said in previous responses—undermines the common frameworks process. It was designed to resolve, or to try and work through, some of the policy divergence that we will have in some areas, because it is every devolved Government’s right to set the polices that are right for the people who elect it to that position and who deliver on the commitments that it has set out. In essence, the 2020 act and the Subsidy Control Bill remove our ability to do that, because the ultimate end decision rests with the UK Government. That completely undermines the powers that we have in those devolved areas that are of critical importance for devolved Administrations, and it means that the UK Government can overrule us in devolved areas of policy.

Fisheries is a more complex area in relation to the Subsidy Control Bill. I will bring in Caro Cowan on that point.