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As far as I am aware, there has been no such communication—there has certainly been no communication with me. I have had no communication at all from the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in relation to that. However, I would be happy to share such information with the committee, should I ever receive it.

I do not believe that amendment 135 is necessary. Last week, we discussed at length the need to have a rural support plan that is underpinned by statute to set out precisely how public support will be provided to deliver the objectives of the bill, how progress will be tracked and how and with whom the plan will be co-developed. In last week’s discussion, I set out in detail my intention to lodge a wraparound set of amendments to enable the points that were raised by members to be addressed. In lodging those amendments, I will consider what Colin Smyth is looking to achieve with amendment 135. Therefore, I hope that amendment 135 will not be moved today, so that we can have further conversation.

On amendments 50 and 138, I have been consistent and clear on the Government’s approach, which is to co-develop with the industry and our wider partners to ensure that the support that we underpin through legislation has the support of those who are due to receive it and, ultimately, that it best meets the wider interests of rural Scotland—agriculture, in particular. That co-design work is already well under way, so it is debatable how useful consulting on the content of regulations would be. It would unhelpfully slow down the process of making relatively minor changes to vital support, and I do not think that that would be in the best interests of farmers, crofters and land managers. I therefore urge members not to support Rhoda Grant’s amendment 50 or Rachael Hamilton’s amendment 138.

Amendment 136 seeks to make specific support accessible to tenant farmers. I am fully committed to ensuring that tenant farmers are given equality of opportunity to access the new agricultural support framework and that its four tiers work for all types of land tenure. Some of the barriers to that happening, particularly in relation to peatland restoration and agroforestry, relate to the landowner-tenant relationship and where power currently lies. The provisions in the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill, which I introduced to the Parliament in March, seek to remedy some of the issues with that. I hope that Rachael Hamilton will support the provisions in that bill and, because we are dealing with such issues in that bill, I hope that she will not move amendment 136.

Amendment 137 proposes to place a precondition on the Scottish ministers to engage with any communities or persons who might be affected by forestry activities prior to making regulations in relation to forestry support under section 4 of the bill. Although I can understand the overall rationale for the amendment, it would create an unreasonable burden. The forestry support that the bill provides for extends far beyond woodland creation; it covers areas such as deer control, work to improve habitats and species at a landscape scale and even work to improve the accessibility of woodlands around large population centres. Given the breadth of areas that are covered, I am concerned that amendment 137 could result in a duty being placed on the Scottish ministers to engage with every community in Scotland before making regulations to adjust what forestry activities might be supported, which would be impractical.

I assure Ariane Burgess that forest planning and woodland creation guidance documents are already under review and are being aligned with the Scottish Land Commission’s community engagement guidance. I am happy to provide committee members with more information on that process. I hope that, given my explanation of the work that is under way elsewhere, Ariane Burgess will not see the need to move amendment 137.

I believe that Tim Eagle’s amendment 157 is well intentioned. As I said, the rural support plan is the right place for reporting on the monitoring and evaluation of our performance. The timescale that the Scottish ministers must produce a report within one year of the section coming into force is arbitrary and would be unreasonable, because it fails to account for other reporting cycles that would be established to each and every delegated function as best fit. I urge Tim Eagle not to move amendment 157.

I do not have much to say, because amendments 9, 12 and 18 correct some minor typographical errors that were identified following the bill’s introduction.

I will add one point on amendment 19, which reverses the repeal of section 60 of the Agriculture (Scotland) Act 1948. Initially, we included the repeal in the bill because it was thought that the power to appropriate land in section 60 was no longer used. However, it is used, including in respect of the 2018 action that was taken by Scottish ministers to acquire the land at the former Ravenscraig hospital from NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde for the purposes of local housing.

I encourage the committee to support the amendments.

I move amendment 9.

Amendment 9 agreed to.

Amendments 10 and 11 moved—[Mairi Gougeon]—and agreed to.

Amendment 148 moved—[Tim Eagle].

I hope that the rest of my comments will better answer some of the concerns that you raise. I understand the concerns that have been raised, because we discussed the issue at length in committee. I also understand why the amendments in the group have been lodged. However, I am trying to set out why section 7 is relevant and important.

Amendment 154 shows a misunderstanding of why we might want provisions on compliance with guidance and why that should be taken into account when we determine whether a duty or condition has been met.

In the example of a farmer who had potentially been challenged, a provision of that type might help them to show that what they were doing was lawful or that it met a condition of support. It might help them to show that a particular penalty should not be applied, which would be more likely to ensure fairness than the contrary, as well as helping farmers to manage their businesses with certainty.

Another example is that, under the current schemes, scales of compliance are reflected in cross-compliance. There are currently 32 ways in which a breach of cross-compliance can be assessed that recognise intent, extent, severity, permanence and reoccurrence. Penalties can range from 1 per cent to 100 per cent. Guidance on penalties is currently set out on the rural payments and services website, which provides clarity to claimants.

We could use that power to set out the extent to which compliance with the guidance is relevant in determining whether there is a breach. That would provide greater certainty for farmers who just want to do the right thing. By removing it, amendment 154 would remove the ability to provide that clarity. To be fair, I do not think that that was the intent of the amendment. Therefore, I encourage Tim Eagle not to press the amendment. If he does, I encourage the committee not to support it.

Yes, of course. We have already touched on the good food nation plans and the issues that can be considered in that regard. That is meant to involve a cross-Government approach—we are looking at all the different areas that touch on food policy and giving them further consideration. Again, I think that the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022 is the appropriate lens through which to look at the issues that Emma Harper has raised.

Absolutely. The point is that we want to develop it further. It is a pilot at the moment. Ultimately, we want to work with small producers to find the best means of providing support and to discover what support will work best for them.

As I have just outlined, we are at the start of that process. We must take the actions that we learn from the pilot need to be taken and look to develop that fund in future. I am more than happy to continue to engage with the member and the committee, and to provide them with an update on that work as it progresses.

Amendment 68 seeks to create an unspecified minimum level of support that an applicant can receive. I am not able to support amendment 68, because it would create the potential for public support to be gained even if the contribution to outcomes might not merit it.

Amendments 70, 71 and 159 are all variations on the same idea, which call for unspecified levels of front loading to be put into primary legislation. As I have already outlined to the committee, I am committed to supporting small producers according to their needs, and to working with them to develop that support.

Concepts such as front loading and minimum levels of direct support reflect people’s issues and the concerns that they have highlighted with the present and soon-to-be past model of support that we are currently working in. I readily acknowledge that that model has not done enough to support small producers, but, as I outlined to Rhoda Grant, we need the time to develop how best to do that in future as part of our future framework and tiered support. For those reasons, I urge the committee not to support amendments 68, 78, 71 and 159.

On Rhoda Grant’s amendments in this group, section 26 places a duty on the Scottish ministers to prepare and publish a code of practice. As I have already set out, the intention is to give farmers and crofters guidance on a range of ways in which they could voluntarily undertake activity that constitutes sustainable and/or regenerative agriculture. Many activities could be undertaken, because not everything will suit every sector, geography or business.

Rhoda Grant’s amendments would neither enable nor empower farmers and crofters to take up activity that best suits their needs. As we know, regulations are a form of legislation, so requiring them for the code of practice would make the code prescriptive and would limit farmers’ and crofters’ agency and choice. Therefore, I urge committee members not to support amendments 84 to 86.

Rachael Hamilton’s amendment 186 would require the code to assess the impact of species reintroduction. I suggest that there is no need for the amendment, because that assessment could already be made under section 26(3), which sets out what the code should include. Moreover, lots of different actions and activities should be considered in terms of their impact, and it is not helpful to single that one out and put it in the bill. I am also not clear why the code of practice should cover the reintroduction of species, especially when that is not defined. I therefore ask the committee not to support amendment 186.

Edward Mountain might be in luck, because I am, of course, sympathetic to the intention of amendment 187. Although the amendment’s drafting is technically defective, I am happy to work with him on the drafting of an amendment ahead of stage 3.

I am sorry to say this, given that amendment 188 is Mr Eagle’s final amendment, but, as I have said, section 26 requires the Scottish ministers to consult

“such persons as they consider likely to be interested in or affected by”

the code of practice and to lay it before the Scottish Parliament prior to publishing it, which, in my view, gives Parliament and members sufficient opportunity to input their views on the code before it is finalised. Therefore, I ask members not to support amendment 188.

I appreciate the points that members have made. A wide range of amendments have been put forward in this group, both for and against capping, redistributive action and what has been called front loading. I ask members to consider my comments on each, bearing in mind that section 9 already allows for redistributive payments.

Ariane Burgess’s amendment 67 seeks to make capping mandatory. I think that that should be a matter for the Scottish ministers to consider. The power that we have drafted and set out is a permissive one, and any decision to use it will be based on consultation with those persons the Scottish ministers consider appropriate. Edward Mountain made some points in relation to that, but he has not been part of the other discussions that we have had at previous committee meetings, when I talked about how co-development is foundational to our approach for developing policy. It is critical to remember that.

It is necessary for us to retain overall flexibility to be able to deliver the flexible, future-proof legislation that we will need if we are to deliver our vision for agriculture. It must work for us today, but we must ensure that we have legislation that will work in the future. For that reason, I ask the committee not to support amendment 67.

Amendments 68, 70, 71 and 159 all seek to address matters related to our smaller producers. I have already made clear our commitment to ensuring that smaller producers continue to thrive, and I am happy to reiterate that commitment again today. If anything, we want there to be more small producers.

Our small producer pilot, which I have previously mentioned to the committee, is just a start on that journey, as we seek to ensure that we listen to small producers and co-develop support that will work for them. Given their unique contribution to rural Scotland, we want to ensure that small producers are not considered only as an add-on to a generalist support model.

We are taking forward work on the good food nation plan, and I know that the committee will have a role in scrutinising that. The consultation on the plan closed last month. We were keen to engage widely, and we hope that what we have set out in the plan will achieve our overall objectives and our vision for a good food nation. I am happy to continue to engage with Rhoda Grant and other members around the table with an interest in the matter. I want to ensure that the good food nation plan is as strong as possible, and I recognise that it will, of course, evolve over time.

Elena Whitham’s amendment 22 seeks to provide for animal health and welfare to be included in the objectives, and Colin Smyth’s amendment 3 seeks to provide for animal welfare to be included. That emphasises a strand that runs from Scotland’s long-established history of having good-quality livestock to our recent agricultural vision, and that strand will continue into the code for sustainable and regenerative agriculture. At stage 1, we heard a lot from stakeholders about how important that is and that we should state that as an objective of agricultural policy in Scotland. I think that Elena Whitham’s amendment 22 is preferable to Colin Smyth’s amendment 3, so I ask the committee to reject amendment 3 and accept amendment 22.

I agree whole-heartedly with the intention behind Ariane Burgess’s amendment 23. I want to include in the new tier framework schemes that will help us to deliver that intention in a way that is consistent with the high-level objectives in section 1. However, the amendment relates to a specific aim rather than a high-level objective, so it would be inappropriate to include in the bill what is proposed in the amendment. Moreover, enabling what I have set out could, arguably, be a key way of delivering objective 4, which is

“enabling rural communities to thrive.”

I hope that that reassures Ariane Burgess and that she will not move amendment 23. However, if she does, I ask the committee not to support it.

Ariane Burgess has also lodged amendments 24 and 25. Section 1 of the bill sets out the key objectives for agricultural policy, and the third objective refers specifically to “on-farm” support. I am not sure where agricultural policy and those objectives would be delivered other than on farms. The objectives seek to intrinsically link agricultural policy and food production, with there also being the need for

“on-farm nature restoration, climate mitigation and adaptation”.

The bill does enable a much wider range of support, but section 1 is focused on agriculture and is not the place for any wider objectives. It should be remembered that the bill is primarily to support agricultural producers who then might wish to take up climate and nature measures. Widening the bill’s scope by removing the term “on-farm” risks dilution of support for farmers and does not recognise that other support is available outwith agricultural support. For example, we have the nature restoration fund. I therefore ask the committee to reject amendment 24.

On amendment 25, the bill already includes powers that enable farmers, crofters and land managers to collaborate between farms and at landscape scale if they wish to do. That includes funding for third-party support to deliver grants and support to enable such collaborations to occur. I therefore ask the committee not to support amendment 25.

Colin Smyth’s amendments 98, 99, 100, 104 and 105 remove the current objective for nature restoration and climate and replace it with a range of new separate objectives, as well as additional detail. Much consideration has gone into ensuring that the wording in the bill and in the objectives reflects terms with common meaning that can be articulated to the vision. The four objectives are not listed in order of priority, but it is important to note that, by their very nature, they are high-level and wide-ranging and are aimed at supporting the others. On-farm nature restoration, climate mitigation and adaptation are clearly covered by the current objectives, so I struggle to see what value there would be in separating them into individual objectives, as has been proposed by Colin Smyth’s amendments 98, 99 and 100.

His amendments 100 and 105 propose inserting the term “natural heritage”. I want to be clear that enhancing our nation’s natural heritage is something that we all subscribe to, but that term has contested understandings and using it might narrow the scope of intent of the existing objective. On-farm nature restoration is already suitably and clearly covered by the objectives in the bill as it is drafted, so I struggle to see what replacing it with a specific nature objective would achieve.

Amendment 104 seeks to reintroduce an objective on climate mitigation and adaptation. Those are already suitably and clearly covered by the objectives in the bill and we are already bound by the requirements of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, so I struggle to see what value that amendment offers. For those reasons, I ask the committee not to support that group of amendments.

Rachael Hamilton’s amendment 101 looks to alter the text of the objective in section 1(d):

“enabling rural communities to thrive.”

The amendment proposes adding reference to farmers as part of that objective. The amendment reflects the vital importance of farmers to our rural communities and I fully recognise the key role that farmers play in supporting the socioeconomic vitality of rural areas. However, farmers are an integral part of our rural communities and I do not think that they should be viewed as separate to that and to the communities where they live and work. That is why I think that Rachael Hamilton’s amendment 101 is unnecessary and I ask the committee not to support it.

During stage 1, I signalled the importance of monitoring and evaluating the contribution that support might make towards the delivery of our objectives and the meeting of our statutory duties. However, I suggest that the rural support plan would be the appropriate place for us to do that, as the full framework of support that would be enabled by the bill can be considered together rather than through a separate set of regulations, which amendment 109 calls for.

We should also be wary of requiring targets to be established when the legal effects of them are unclear and the duty to achieve them is unqualified. As we will all be aware, targets are very easy to set and are much more challenging to deliver in practice, especially when it is largely down to the efforts of a wide range of third parties to meet them. In the next group of amendments, which is on the contents and scrutiny of the rural support plan, I will set out my intention to come back to the Parliament at stage 3 with a more suitable framing of the planned requirements to cover a wide range of the issues that were raised at stage 1, as well as issues that have been raised by stakeholders, including on the monitoring and evaluation process. In my view, that approach would more effectively deliver on the intent that I believe is behind amendment 109. Therefore, I ask Colin Smyth not to press his amendment. If he does, I ask the committee not to support it.

Rachael Hamilton’s amendment 110 amends section 20 of the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022 to require the Scottish food commission to

“keep under review progress in achieving the objective in section(1)(b)”

of the bill. Section (1)(b), on the overarching objectives of agricultural policy, says:

“For or the purposes of this Act, the objectives of agricultural policy are the production of high quality food”.

The 2022 act contains provisions to establish a new Scottish food commission to provide the oversight for the delivery of the provisions in the act. The Scottish food commission will be an executive non-departmental public body and its purpose will be to provide oversight of the good food nation plans, as required by the 2022 act. Expanding that purpose to include oversight for legislation, including the bill that we are considering, is not useful and it may prevent the commission from effectively exercising its existing functions. It is vital that the commission is allowed to focus on ensuring the delivery and implementation of the good food nation plans by Scottish ministers, local authorities and health boards. For that reason, I urge members not to support amendment 110.

On amendment 111, when public expenditure is involved and is being provided to help to deliver a wide range of objectives, it is right that regular progress is reported on. However, the expectation that review periods are set to arbitrary timescales that might not be reflective of the timetable for the support that is in place is not right. There is a distinct risk that Rachael Hamilton’s amendment 111 would require there to be reporting on such a frequent basis that it would become hugely costly and burdensome and that that would get in the way of delivery, which I do not think would be in anyone’s interests. We need to provide for appropriate monitoring and evaluation. As I have outlined, I believe that the rural support plan is the right place for that activity to be undertaken. I will set out what that might look like in the debate on the next group of amendments. Accordingly, I hope that Rachael Hamilton will not move amendment 111, and I urge the committee not to support it if she does.

I hope that you will allow me to finish my comments, because it is important that I set out what I am looking to achieve and what we hope to gain from that. I am happy to follow up with you separately. That is not normally how the process for engaging on amendments that we would lodge as a result of the discussions that we have had at stage 2 is handled. I hope that you will allow me to set out fully and clearly what we are planning to do, because that sets us on the path of a constructive way forward.