Seòmar agus comataidhean

So, QMS is not worried about this.

I have to be to the point—that is a bit of a shame.

I declare an interest in that I farm, which I always forget to say.

I still think that there is a massive, gaping black hole of practical detail that we would need on the farm when we are out every day with our sheep, but we have run out of time to talk about that.

Rhoda Grant is absolutely right that receiving payments on time is critical. Why would any of us not want that? But that is not what we are getting at. Kate Rowell said:

“Unfortunately—and this brings us back to the computer system—there seems to be no way of implementing that list.”—[Official Report, Rural Affairs and Islands Committee, 12 March 2025; c 13.]

That goes back to the greening measures that the Government put out.

George Burgess talked about investment in the system. If you want to fundamentally change the system to deliver a much wider scope, in order to give options to farmers on the ground, you have to fund it. When I worked in the department, in 2015, we were working with three or four different computer systems—I do not know what you are doing now. Can you give me an absolute assurance, here and now, that the money is in the budget to implement the system in 2026 and that, in the next year or year and a half, you will ensure that the computer system is able to deliver the changes that you would like to see?

I am not talking about my time; I am talking about the industry’s time. How do I make an investment now, when, in 12 to 18 months’ time, you will potentially change things? I have absolutely no idea what greening will look like, but you and I both know that, practically, having an idea about that would make a huge difference on a farm. What is the future of the agri-environment climate scheme? What money will go into that? What am I going to get from direct payments? If I want to make an investment now in a building, in bringing in more cattle or more sheep, or in doing something on my farm such as putting in hedgerows or woodland, I need detail. Given all the evidence that we received last week, the communication breakdown seems to be because that detail simply is not there. A minute ago, Mandy Callaghan said that you were testing particular ideas. What are those ideas? I do not know what they are, because the detail simply is not there.

You can skip me if you want to, convener. It is fine.

I want to pick up on what has been said about woodland, because it is an interesting point. I helped my neighbour after storm Arwen, when a few shelter belts came down on the farm. We could have been in there the next day to clear the trees and replant immediately, because they were good trees, but bureaucracy prevented us from doing that. We need Forestry and Land Scotland to have faster bureaucratic processes so that, in the event a major storm or something like that, we can get in quickly. We had to get a licence to remove the trees, and it is an arduous process. That was the issue. It was not that we did not want to do it; we could not do it, because FLS would come in and tell us off.

A lot of my questions have been answered, but what new research and innovation is coming out in relation to climate resilience? What is the most exciting stuff that we could deliver at pace? What more could the Scottish Government do to enable greater climate resilience in agriculture?

The agri-environment climate scheme or AECS—Ariane Burgess does not like it when I use too many acronyms—had £50 million in the pot, but I think that it is now down to £25 million, so it has taken a hit. Work on hedges, ponds, increasing wetlands and a lot of other stuff in that scheme was beneficial to the wider farm, including small-scale woodland planting. Did that scheme deliver some of what you are talking about?

Tell me the answers, then. What is the future of greening? Are you going to cap or front load payments? What is tier 2 going to look like?

A 70:30 split, yes.

We are shaking our heads because, whether for you on the hill farm that you had in the past, or for me on my little hobby farm at home, the detail simply is not there to allow us to make the investments in the future that we need to make. Although the high-level vision that the Government likes is there—the four tiers—that is meaningless to a farmer on the ground.

I will ask one more very quick question, because I know that we are pushed for time. At one point, you released a whole screed of information about what might be in tier 2. We are now being told that the computer system fundamentally cannot deliver that, which means that it does not look like anything will change in greening—and yet greening has not really been that helpful. Can you give me an assurance now that you and the IT system are going to able to deliver the changes that you want to see and that you have spoken about in the past?

I want to go back to a couple of things that you have said. You have made two criticisms of what is going on “down the road”, by which I presume that you mean in England. That is slightly improper, because what we are talking about here is Scottish agriculture. Your party and my party have argued that agriculture is fundamentally different in Scotland, which is why we have things such as the less favoured area support scheme.

However, you have also mentioned three times individuals not getting what they want. Over the past 10 years, your party—your Government—has put in place farmer-led groups and given them very specific remits, and they have gone out and done that work, but you have then completely ignored that work and decided to put something else in place. Surely this is not about individuals not getting what they want; it is about the industry feeling that it is not being listened to. That is what was picked up in last week’s evidence session.