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Our next item of business is a short evidence session with the minister on future agriculture policy. At the end of last week’s meeting, members agreed that it would be useful to follow up on a few points that had arisen in the discussions about the ability of future agriculture policy to facilitate a reduction in carbon emissions from agriculture.
I ask the minister to make a short opening statement.
I thank the committee for inviting me back to discuss agricultural reform following last Wednesday’s evidence session with key stakeholders.
Our message to Scotland’s agricultural businesses and to the wider industry is very simple: the Scottish Government is fully committed to supporting the sector. Agricultural businesses are the bedrock of our rural communities—they underpin thriving rural communities. As we confront the twin challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss, we stand united with our farmers and crofters in striving to ensure that the sector has a prosperous and sustainable future.
We have seen from the experience in England what happens when decisions on future support are poorly thought through and rushed. Therefore, we are taking our time to make the right decisions, making progress now and engaging with communities and stakeholders on our future direction.
09:15Change is never easy, and I am determined that we get it right for Scotland. Active farming and sustainable food production remain at the core of our agenda. That is underpinned by our commitment to maintaining direct payments, which offer stability in an increasingly volatile world and enable our farmers to produce food sustainably. In return for public investment, we are asking farmers and crofters to join us in doing more for the climate and nature.
As I outlined in February, our approach focuses on delivering five key outcomes and delivering reforms that balance those requirements. Those outcomes are high-quality food production, thriving agricultural businesses, climate change mitigation and adaptation, nature restoration and support for a just transition, and they will ensure that we move towards a sustainable and greener economy in a way that protects the industry, supports communities and, just as important, leaves no one behind.
We are dedicated to modernising the way that we work by driving efficiency and creating an intuitive, seamless information technology experience for farmers and crofters. They need a modern, user-friendly service that allows them to focus on what they do best: farming in a way that protects our environment, boosts our efficiency and helps their businesses to thrive.
By working with the sector, we will use this opportunity to deliver a truly bespoke solution that is tailored to the unique needs of Scotland’s agricultural community. Achieving that vision will require a comprehensive organisational redesign and a revamping of systems, processes and capabilities to build a future-ready framework. In the immediate term, we are using the tools that are currently at our disposal. We are simultaneously deeply engaged in co-developing the future operating model and transition plan with stakeholders.
That collaborative approach has been undertaken in all our proposals. For example—to name just a few—it has been undertaken in the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill, the enhanced greening scheme and the code of practice. Just this week, my officials met with the food and agriculture stakeholder task force group. As part of that process, we have planned follow-up meetings in May and a list of other stakeholder engagements.
Each time we have those conversations, they lead to a refinement of policy proposals, additional detail and analysis, which all feeds into the advice that I receive and the decisions that the cabinet secretary and I then take.
Let me be clear: profitability and sustainable farming do not have to be opposing forces. With the right support at the right time, and while safeguarding our planet, we can get this right for the sector, the planet and the resilience of our food supply.
Those five outcomes are interconnected and require a delicate balance, but I know that success relies on farmers and crofters being economically viable to deliver the vision for agriculture. I will continue to work as hard as I can, and I will ensure that there is regular engagement not only at the official level but at the ministerial level as well. We will continue to develop our thinking, which will provide practical solutions to all the challenges that we face.
We will not get everything right, and folk will not get everything that they want. However, I will stretch every sinew to get it as right as I can for as many people as I can. I hope that the industry continues to engage and becomes even more engaged to help us to fulfil the ambitions that we have set out for ourselves.
Thank you, minister. We appreciate your statement and we have previously heard a statement along similar lines. However, last week, we met with four significant representatives from the agriculture sector and their views on the progress that has been made by the Scottish Government on future agricultural policy were largely critical. They had concerns about the lack of effective implementation, a lack of communication and the constraints that the IT system puts on future development.
To highlight some of their perspectives, I will provide some quotes. Jonnie Hall from NFU Scotland said:
“we are still operating the legacy common agricultural policy schemes”.
He also said:
“We need to move forward with a degree of pace, because, as we know, the expectations on the agriculture sector to deliver not only on food production but on climate and biodiversity are increasing all the time.”
Pete Ritchie suggested:
“We were expecting a big bang, but there is just a very small squeak at the moment. ... we have not come up with a coherent way to help farmers to reduce their emissions through the subsidy scheme.”
Kate Rowell said:
“There is a real lack of certainty among farmers. They do not know what is coming. That has resulted in a lack of investment for quite a few years.”
Jim Walker said:
“The lack of coherent agricultural policy in Scotland has held the industry back”.
He also said—excuse my language—that
“The computer system is knackered and has been for years—it has been held together by Blu-Tack and sticky tape since I can remember.”—[Official Report, Rural Affairs and Islands Committee, 12 March 2025; c 3, 4, 4, 4, 5.]
Finally, Neil Wilson of the Institute of Auctioneers and Appraisers in Scotland said, regarding co-development:
“All the way through the farmer-led groups to ARIOB and other committees, the Government has absorbed a massive amount of industry time, investment and knowledge and it does not appear to have taken much of that on board or moved forward with it.” —[Official Report, Rural Affairs and Islands Committee, 12 March 2025; c 15.]
I would like to hear your comments, because the industry is telling us that what you say is not happening and has not happened in the past few years.
I watched that meeting. I was disappointed by some of the comments and am very disappointed by some of those that you have just read out. I disagree with all of them. I absolutely accept that there will be tensions in the room—I very much took on board the criticisms of ARIOB. However, when I reflect on that, I think about where we were and where we are trying to go.
We talk about co-development and a just transition until they become just words and phrases and people start switching off, but the processes and principles behind them are absolutely essential. Co-development is about sitting down in the room with the stakeholders who are going to have access to more than £640 million of public funds. There will be differences of opinion when those diverse groups are sitting in the room, and being part of the co-design does not mean that you get what you want every time you ask for it; it means getting the opportunity to speak directly to ministers and officials and to talk about the requirements for the part of the sector that you are really passionate about.
Our job is to take that away, distil it down and think about how to take all the competing views and the requirements on us, as a Government, to reach the policy objectives that Parliament has agreed on. We have to pull all of that together to get a coherent policy. That is hard—it is not easy—but what underpins all of that is our absolute determination to continue that co-development and those conversations and to continue taking diverse views as we consider how to get this right.
We have made progress. We have the calf scheme, the whole-farm plan and the audits. We have things in place. We do not want to listen to what everyone says and then tell them that there is a system that they have to go with, because that would be a cliff edge. That might sound like a cliché, but that would be the cliff edge that the cabinet secretary committed not to take the Scottish system towards. We have seen what happened when other parts of the UK went down that road, and the Scottish Government is determined that that will not be the case here. I think we are on a trajectory that will let us allow farmers to put baselines into their own farms and work out where they are on the trajectory, so that they know what they need to do to move forward.
I absolutely take on board the criticisms that the committee aimed at us last week. We will consider those criticisms and will justify our reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with them, but I am more committed to ensuring that we continue our engagement in order to get the best possible policies.
Those are not the committee’s criticisms: we are reflecting what we heard. You say that you will continue the dialogue, but that dialogue is not working at the moment. We heard concerns about an SSI from the crofters, who suggested that there is a lack of understanding of their issues, and Jonnie Hall told us that
“communication has been absolutely woeful—in fact, it has been completely lacking.”—[Official Report, Rural Affairs and Islands Committee, 12 March 2025; c 24.]
Not only do those in the industry think that they are not being listened to; the communication of your message is just not happening. Jim Walker told us:
“ARIOB is a fig leaf for not doing anything. It is a way of pretending to engage with the industry, then doing what you like and picking bits from other reports.”—[Official Report, Rural Affairs and Islands Committee, 12 March 2025; c 18.]
We do not appear to be in a particularly good place.
On that—
Sorry, minister. I see George Burgess laughing, but those are serious concerns.
We are taking those concerns on board.
Last week was the first time that the committee had the opportunity to hear evidence from members of ARIOB and other stakeholders and to ask them questions. What we heard was not good—the co-design is not working. Are you planning to change how you approach your engagement with stakeholders?
The co-design is working, convener. There may be individuals who are not getting what they want, but that goes back to my original statement: the purpose of ARIOB, the FAST group or any other discussions is not for individuals to say, “This is what I want the Government to do, now go and do it.” It is for stakeholders to give us as much information as they possibly can in order to allow us to consider how to fit those things into our budget and policy objectives and to ensure that we keep our communities resilient. I will look again at the issues that were raised at the committee’s session last week and think about whether I believe that the criticisms are justified. If I believe that they are, they will inform my thinking and the thinking of the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands as part of the co-development and co-design process.
We have made it crystal clear from the start that this will be done only if the farming community comes with us—and it is doing that. On numerous occasions when he was the president of the NFU Scotland, Martin Kennedy said, “You cannot do this unless the industry is coming with you.” I understand the frustration and that this is not all being done in one fell swoop, but if that were to happen, we would get it wrong. Therefore, we are doing this piece by piece, stage by stage and issue by issue, in order to try to get it right. As long as we continue to do that, we will get to the place where we need to be within our current constraints.
Part of the problem is that it feels a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. No one sees the full picture that we are aiming for and it is all very piecemeal. SSIs on various bits are lodged at committee, but when we highlight issues raised by farmers and crofters, you say, “Oh, but that was discussed at ARIOB and they never said anything.” When we go back farmers and crofters, we discover that they have said things at ARIOB that they have then relayed to committee members in order to try to raise their concerns, which turn out to be huge issues when we are looking at the statutory instruments. Obviously, something is not working. I think that you would agree that some of the issues that have been raised by the committee about the statutory instruments were crucial and should have been sorted out earlier.
If the ARIOB process was working, stakeholders were being heard at those meetings and the department was listening to what they say, we would have overcome the issues. It seems to me that ARIOB is not working and that there is no vision for agriculture in five or 10 years’ time, so people feel as though they are running around like headless chickens, trying to see how their business fits into the various piecemeal aspects of legislation. Surely, that is not the way to work. What can we do about ARIOB to ensure that it works? Is there another mechanism that we can use? What is your vision for agriculture? What will be happening in the sector in five or 10 years’ time?
You have made a number of points and I am writing them down in the hope that I do not forget anything.
There is no doubt that it is a jigsaw, because there is no one-size-fits-all solution for any one type of semi-upland livestock farm, let alone agriculture as a whole. We need to put together a huge number of different components. Clearly, the last time that I was at committee to discuss an SSI, I did not properly articulate that we will be building the jigsaw piece by piece, bit by bit, and that the SSIs will be brought to committee having been given the fullest consideration that we can give them.
I seem to remember that the committee was of the view that, although the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Act 2024 is framework legislation, we needed the full picture. At the time, we said that we could not get the full picture in one go and that we would have to build it piece by piece, therefore, it is a jigsaw—I agree with you.
The Government has created a vision for agriculture. It is out there—it is available for anyone who wants to see what it is. It is a vision of a world-leading, sustainable, regenerative agricultural practice, which our farmers and crofters are right behind as they produce top-quality food while maintaining good biodiversity on their farms. They are the custodians of our landscape. That is the vision, and I do no think that anyone will disagree with that.
09:30
Can I—
Could you let me finish answering the question?
Okay.
You are saying that ARIOB is not working, but I dispute that. ARIOB is working. That is where we have some robust, long conversations in the room. I reiterate that, if someone is in ARIOB and puts their point across, that does not mean that they get exactly what they want. We have to go away and distil the information, consider what it means, consider how it fits into the jigsaw and then determine what we need to do to achieve the vision that we have set out.
If there are glaring errors in that jigsaw, and if your explanation to us for that is that the matter was not mentioned at ARIOB, but we go to the members of ARIOB and they say, “Yes, it was,” then that is not working. If members of ARIOB are pointing out things that you appreciate, from talking to us, are issues, but you are not hearing it from them, then the arrangements are not working.
I go back to the point that I made earlier. You are saying that there are glaring mistakes. They will not necessarily be mistakes, however. If they are, I will be more than happy to go back and say, “Okay, maybe we have got that wrong, and we will change it.” That was the whole purpose of making the legislation a framework bill. I absolutely accept that we will not get everything right. As we start to implement things, if we need to change something—and we have the ability to do that through secondary legislation—we will do so. We could not have done that if everything had been set out in the bill itself, as was constantly demanded by the committee.
If there are things that become a real issue, I am more than happy, as minister, to look at them and ask whether we are getting things right and how we can change them. In fact, I think I gave that commitment at my previous evidence session, when I said that we will look at things as we develop the policy. The 2025 single application forms will come in, we will see what happens with them, and that will allow us to ask whether the processes that we are implementing, which we are asking people to be part of, are working. If they are not, why is that? What do we need to do to make them work? Do we need to change them?
That is part of the co-development of policy. I am repeating myself but, if we had told the committee and the industry, “There’s your policy. Get on with it,” we would have got it wrong. We have seen how it is possible to get it wrong—all you need to do is look south of the border.
But if ARIOB was working, this would not be the case. Take the instrument on calving intervals—the Rural Support (Improvement) (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2024. That gave rise to an issue for rural areas and islands, and you have admitted that. You have said that you will look at that again. That was discussed at ARIOB, yet we got an instrument that created real concerns in the industry. If ARIOB was working, those concerns should have been ironed out there, and we should have got a piece of legislation that nobody commented about.
I agree that that would have been the ideal scenario. As I stated at the time, I did not understand why we were getting pushback at the very late stages—but, for whatever reason, we did. If concerns were raised, they were taken into consideration. There was an awful lot of official engagement at the grass-roots level to make proposals about how to make the measures work and to ask if everybody was on board with that.
I accept that the crofting situation is slightly different. I have given you a commitment that the force majeure provision will be in place this year, and it will be a matter of looking sympathetically at any issues that crofters in particular or people farming in the most remote areas have, particularly concerning smaller herds. I have given that commitment before.
If the policy is not working, I am prepared to take another look at it. I have given that commitment before, too. To me, that is part of co-development and getting it right. If we try something and it is not working, we will consider how to change it. Does it still achieve the policy objective?
I spent my weekend travelling round the crofting counties for exactly the reason you are talking about: if there are things that we are not picking up in one forum, I want to go to another forum. I went round Lewis, Harris and Skye, and I met large numbers of crofters. Our discussions were largely on the proposed crofting bill, but we also touched on other things. That engagement and level of interaction is exactly what will allow us to develop the policy.
I get that it is frustrating. I understand that. However, we cannot make a one-size-fits-all piece of legislation and say, “Here it is,” because that will not work. We want to make sure that we do it in a way that gets to the end of the route map that tells us what the policy looks like. Even once we get to that, policy will continue to change and evolve as circumstances change. That was the beauty of using a framework bill.
I do not want to hog the session, but I have more questions.
To me, that is an indication that ARIOB is not working. The committee is not part of that co-production—maybe we would like to be a part of it—but we are supposed to scrutinise and vote on legislation. It is surely not right that things that are discussed with the industry end up before us as issues.
On the vision, to go back to the jigsaw analogy, most of us look at the picture of the finished thing as we put the bits in place, but in this instance, no one sees that picture as the bits are being placed. That is creating uncertainty in the industry. People do not quite know what the finished product will be.
For instance, we hear a lot about emissions from beef and dairy animal rearing. People who are involved in such rearing do not know what the Government is going to do or what it will encourage, so numbers in animal breeding are falling, which means that we are importing meat from other countries that do not have anything close to our ability to offset carbon.
How can people work with that? Everyone is happy that there is no cliff edge, but they need at least to know the direction of travel so that they can move in that direction. That is missing.
George Burgess has been itching to come in for a minute or two, so I will let him come in, but I will come back to your specific points.
To pick up on your jigsaw analogy, yes, it is being done piece by piece. However, we have the picture in place on the front of the box, which is the vision for agriculture and—although I know that people do not necessarily like the terminology—the road map. What is staying in place from the existing schemes, and for how long, is already set out, and there is clarity on when bits of the new schemes and policy decisions will come along. That is not the answer to every question, but it gives people a degree of clarity as to what is coming and when.
On the wider comms theme, the convener has identified why I do not play poker. I would describe my expression as more of a wry smile than a laugh.
Jonnie Hall said that communication had been non-existent, but there has been an awful lot of communication: letters to individual farmers; materials on the website and on social media; the succession of appearances by my officials, myself and ministers at agricultural shows and marts around the country, engaging directly with farmers; written material that has set out very clearly what is happening and what is available under the preparing for sustainable farming scheme. That is an awful lot of communication to be called non-existent.
If there has been all that communication, why, without exception, did everybody last week say that communication had been woeful?
You would need to ask them why they think that. I genuinely cannot understand Jonnie Hall’s position. When we were initially talking about the suckler beef support scheme, I had conversations with my officials over concerns that information on it had not been disseminated widely enough and on what the NFUS and the Scottish Beef Association had done. I asked, “Have we written to every single farmer?” and the answer was, “No, not at this stage, minister.” I asked why not, and they answered that they were working through a process of getting stuff out. I said, “From here on in, we will write to every single farmer if a change will be relevant to them.” That costs money, but it means that we are not disavowing ourselves of the responsibility of getting the information out. We will continue to do that.
The rationale behind that thinking was this: when I was farming, if I got a letter from the NFUS, the National Sheep Association, the National Beef Association or anybody else, I would put it on the rainy day pile and get to it eventually, because I was too busy working. However, if a Scottish Government letter came through my letterbox, I stopped what I was doing in order to find out what it wanted me to know or what it was telling me was going to happen. Therefore, writing to every farmer is what we committed to do. It is simply not the case that there has been no communication, and I am disappointed that Jonnie Hall made that statement.
Rural payments and inspections division officials have been at roadshows and shows, where we know where farmers are going to be, right around the country. Farmers have been given very clear and simple leaflets about what is coming. As George Burgess said, we have been at numerous committee sessions and engaged widely. My officials are speaking to FAST, which represents a huge number of people, so constant engagement is on-going, and that will continue to be the case.
I am going to ask Mandy Callaghan when communication started, but my understanding is that it has been on-going since the start of the process.
The amount of engagement has increased exponentially. Off the top of my head, there were 25 official meetings, which were on various things, such as the changes that are coming in 2026. There was a substantial amount of co-development, engagement and testing of ideas and thoughts, such as the 2026 changes, in particular, but also all the things that have been announced to date.
Coming up, we have a programme of deep dives with stakeholders. We want to openly share what some of the big challenges will be, and the difference between what we are doing now with what we have and what we will be able to do with what we are designing for the future.
This week’s meeting with FAST was really good.
When did you first meet with FAST?
This week’s meeting was the first that I have had with FAST, but my teams have regularly met all sorts of stakeholders, including FAST. We certainly want to ratchet up some of that engagement. We can always engage more, but we are taking information and hearing opposing views.
Some decisions that need to be taken involve balancing the five outcomes that the minister talked about. A balance must be had between those positions, which is at times quite challenging, and different stakeholders have different views.
FAST was established in 2022 and, since then, engagement has been on-going at various in-depth levels. The type of engagement depends on where we are at any given time.
As a minister, I am not an expert on every single thing that comes across my desk by any stretch of the imagination. I like to have policy teams on this side and stakeholders on that side and listen to the arguments of the different voices around the room, so that we can then say, “What does that actually look like if we are going to try to develop that into a policy?” That is the right way for me, because if I allow people to have arguments, I can pick out the bits that I do not understand or that I fundamentally disagree with, which forms the thinking around how we develop a policy going forward.
That process is not going to happen overnight. It will take us time, but, if we do it right, we will get the right results in the end.
I am conscious that we are going round and round, so I am going to bring in members now. Emma Harper, Tim Eagle, Ariane Burgess and Evelyn Tweed have indicated that they want to speak.
I will not take up a lot of time, convener.
Minister, you mentioned having stakeholders on one side and your policy people on the other side. We talk about the transition for farmers, but we talk about a just transition in other areas as well. That involves thinking about co-development, co-design and diversity of food production and food security. It is different for sheep, beef, dairy and arable, so I assume that that means that there has to be a lot of diverse engagement. We know that, as Jonnie Hall said, one size doesnae fit all, so there has to be wider engagement.
I am looking at the number of farmers. There are 66,800, so I assume that 66,800 letters went out. How do we know that they are reading the letters? I know that you are engaging—that is my understanding—but how do we close the communication loop?
09:45
You will be aware of the phrase, “You can take a horse to water, but you cannae make it drink.” We are providing as many opportunities as we can for farmers to engage in the process. If there is a farmer who does not know that a process is on-going, I do not know where they have been, because it has been talked about since the decision was taken to leave the European Union. It has been talked about and discussed, and we have been going through the process, so farmers are bound to have noticed that things are happening. There is a certain amount of responsibility on individuals to ask, “What does this mean for me and my business?”
You are absolutely right about the diversity in the numbers and types of farms. When I was on a hill farm, I had 2,200 hill yowes and 75 cows, and the breed had a very specific purpose. Three miles down the road, there was another livestock farmer, and the breeds that he was using had a completely different purpose. There is massive diversity among the sectors in the whole agricultural scheme in Scotland, so we are gonnae have to do it in this way, but there must also be a degree of responsibility on the part of the individual businesses and the individual farmers to ask, “What does this mean for me, how do I get the knowledge that I need and how am I going to make the new system that is being developed work in my favour?”
The Scottish Government’s rural payments and inspections division’s tent was next to the Conservatives’ tent at the Dumfries agricultural show last summer—I stopped and spoke to the team—so there was visibility of the Government there.
Agricultural shows are a vital part of our ability to communicate with folk, because that is when a farmer might say, “Do you know what? That’s been bothering me. I’ve got 10 minutes—I’ll just pop in.” If that gets them reading our leaflets and they think, “Oh, I need to get more involved in this,” the process is doing its job. However, we can only ensure that we make the information available to people; they then have the responsibility to pick it up and act on it in the most appropriate way for them.
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.
I disagree. When I talk about farming systems down south, I am merely giving an example. If you get something wrong, it is catastrophic and, as you and I will agree, a system of inheritance tax has been brought in that is going to be catastrophic for family farms—
On that, I agree with you.
A number of different schemes that are going to be or have been absolutely catastrophic have been brought in because people have just not bothered to get involved. I am giving the committee an example of how we are trying to co-produce a policy system that will allow every farmer in the country to engage. I am also giving an example of what happens when that is not done in a way that absolutely takes on board the views of the industry. We are absolutely committed to making sure that we avoid making the mistakes that are being made down south, so I make no apology for making that comparison.
The farmer-led groups were not completely ignored—that is absolute nonsense. The farmer led-groups gave their views on what was right for their sectors—that is what they were looking at.
For example, the beef sector looked at the beef sector. I think that I am right in saying that Jim Walker said, “This is what we do for the beef sector,” and he probably presented a brilliantly comprehensive programme of work for the beef sector, because he is an incredibly clever guy who knows exactly what he is doing and how that will benefit his business. However, he added, “But you’ll need to pick up another policy of some kind and give that to the crofters.” Well, we are not in the business of making crofters an afterthought. Crofters are part of our agricultural and community set-up just as much as beef farmers are.
It is not that the farmer-led groups were ignored; the information that was taken from those farmer-led groups has fed into ARIOB, into our engagement with other stakeholders and into my thinking about going and speaking to the crofters in Lewis, Harris, and Skye. However, I will go back to my point that you are not gonnae get everything you want; you are gonnae get a balanced policy that will fit within the policy objectives that we, as a Government, and this Parliament have agreed to and within the budget that this Government has available to it.
Maybe there has been a slight communication breakdown between you and the groups, because even Jonnie Hall said last week:
“Each and every one of the groups’ reports set out significant recommendations, with the groups under the impression that they would be taken forward.”
Kate Rowell talked about a lot of recommendations coming from the groups. Is what Pete Ritchie said not true? He said,
“We are in a holding pattern and we have been for some time.”—[Official Report, Rural Affairs and Islands Committee, 12 March 2025; c 14, 4.]
The communication failures that are happening are not because you have gone out but because you have no detail. What is the future of greening? Are you going to cap payments? Are you going to front load payments? Industry needs certainty if it is to know how to invest in the future. Is the problem not that it does not have that certainty at this point in time?
Again, I fundamentally disagree with you.
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?
Those decisions will be made by me and the cabinet secretary after we have been in consultation with the stakeholders. We will bring those policies forward in SSIs, as we have done before, as we build the jigsaw puzzle that Rhoda Grant mentioned. We will bring those SSIs to the committee, and you will get time to scrutinise them and to take evidence. You will then be able to have me in front of the committee, giving answers on any of the specific areas of policy that we are going to develop.
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 are saying that there has been no progress. We have already said that we are gonnae have four tiers. Tiers 1 and 2 will take up 70 per cent of the budget—
A 70:30 split, yes.
I do not have the figures just now, but we will bring those to the committee. We will bring the detail to the committee as we build the jigsaw puzzle so that people will know what is coming their way. We have already done that with whole-farm plans and with the calf schemes, and we will do it with greening. We will do it with every bit of the jigsaw as we put it back together.
As I have said to you before, we will do this bit by bit in order to get the complete picture, and people will be able to feed into that as they are affected by it. We have done the co-development. We are talking to the groups. The convener can shake his head as much as he likes—you might not like it, but that is the process that we are in. It is that process that will deliver the policy that will allow us to achieve the vision for agriculture that we have all agreed on. That is how it will develop.
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?
If we are gonnae talk about the IT system, I will let Nick Downes and Mandy Callaghan deal with it.
I suggest that, before we move on to that, we pick up some of the other questions about ARIOB. Then we can move on to the IT system—I think that we want to look at that separately.
I will bring in Ariane Burgess and then Evelyn Tweed.
I want to pick up on a few points. In the Parliament, we hear quite a bit about co-design from the Government. This may just be a comment, but we hear “co-design” and then we hear “dissatisfaction”, not just on this committee or on this particular issue. Before I got this job, I used to do design thinking. Is something in the co-design process causing that dissatisfaction? Is there a process that is clearly laid out for the people that you are working with? The double diamond process is an example of a model that gets used a lot. Do people really understand the process that you are taking them through?
Another point is that people are burnt out with consultation. We have heard from colleagues elsewhere that people do not feel as if they are really being heard. It goes beyond being listened to. It is one thing to be listened to, but it is another thing to be heard—you see that there is an outcome because somebody has heard what you have to say.
There is something interesting in there about process, and it leads on to my next point. Last night, the cross-party group on crofting met. The suckler beef SSI came up again as a concern, as well as general concern about the design and roll-out of the system. SSIs are coming—potentially, they will be coming thick and fast; we are not sure—and we do not have a lot of time to scrutinise them.
Minister, it was good to hear that you have visited crofters and built those connections and relationships. I want to get a sense that you are working with crofters, and other farmers before the committee even sees the SSIs—“behind the curtain”, as I would put it—so that people have time to contribute to the co-design in a genuine way. Last night, quite a bit of concern was expressed about that in relation to crofters’ experience.
There were a couple of points in there. I will bring in Mandy Callaghan on how ARIOB was designed and its function.
Ariane Burgess asked a technical question about the approach. I am not the expert in my team, but I do have an expert—there is a head of service design whose role is specifically about user testing.
There are two elements to the co-design. One is more traditional policy development, which involves engaging with groups and representatives. That is an iterative process: we get feedback, we test it with others and the policy picture is built up. The other element is user testing by individual users, and there is an open opportunity for any farmers to sign up to that. Support is available to make sure that everybody can take part in it. There has been quite a lot of take-up—I do not want to say the numbers, but I could provide some technical information from my teams about the farmers who have engaged and the way that they done so. I am happy to commit to coming back to the committee on that.
The work on the measures that Tim Eagle mentioned is part of our future work. There are some challenges associated with having a system that was designed for the common agricultural policy, with 30 years of scheme upon scheme built up in it. It is a complex situation. However, those measures and that vision for what farmers will need to do in the future are continuing to develop and they will be part of the work that we do in the future. The two things are not separate, and the work is continuing—it is has not finished.
That is helpful. If you would send on that detail, that would be great.
I will send details of the plan and the user-testing approach.
It would be good to understand that.
Briefly, I will add something on the process in ARIOB. Members of ARIOB are clear that it is a discussion forum and that the decisions are taken by ministers. The discussion within ARIOB has not been rigid; it has flexed over time. Maybe, in the early days, some members were concerned that we were bringing things to them when they had already been quite well worked out, and there was less opportunity for them to have input. So, we flex: there are some issues for which we go to ARIOB at a very early stage of thinking.
To respond to Mr Eagle’s point, we have had a couple of quite detailed discussions about the enhanced greening policy, what percentages should be set and what new options we should add to that. Different sectors are represented on ARIOB, and what might suit one sector will not necessarily suit another.
10:00That all goes into the mix and forms part of ministers’ thinking. We want to make sure that we do not end up in a situation in which there are people who find themselves faced with an obligation—a greening requirement on part of their land—that they can do nothing, in practical terms, to meet. That is why we are doing that thinking.
Specifically on the issue of getting crofters behind the curtain and co-designing—
I have been trying to get to the crofting counties for the past six months. It is incredibly difficult—the diary demands are intense, to say the least, and such visits have to be fitted in around other engagements. It is not an easy process. However, I specifically demanded that I get to the crofting counties, because there are important things happening in those areas. In my submission, I said that we should not meet “the usual suspects”. I make that point clearly, because we are all guilty of hearing from the same people. When I was a member of this committee, we would see the same faces again and again, and we would have the same discussions over and over again.
Therefore, I wanted to get “behind the curtain”, as you put it, to speak to people who might not be engaged in such processes and might not know that there are organisations that are having discussions on their behalf, because they are not members of those organisations. Those are the people I was specifically targeting. I used the experience of my previous life as a farmer to approach individuals and say, “We want to have a discussion on these issues. Can you get some people together?” They then spoke to the officials, who pulled those meetings together.
I am more than happy to do that—in fact, I will insist that we do not only bring in the usual suspects, who can talk eloquently all day, but who might not have the same thoughts as people who work on farms from day to day.
That applies not only to crofters. I recently visited the Soil Association Exchange, which invited me to meet an ordinary farmer—an ordinary guy who is doing his job. The Soil Association Exchange had contacted him and asked him whether he would like to take part, and I went to meet him. He is exactly the kind of person we need to be talking to, because he is the kind of person who will make the decisions that will allow us to establish a baseline for where we want to get to and how we will build up to that. He is not engaged politically. He is not engaged in the NFU. He gets letters in the same way that I would when I used to farm. I used to say, “Yeah—I’ll get to that.”
It is really important that we get to people like that farmer, which is why I made a point of going to speak to him. That highlighted to me the language that ordinary farmers use—the language that they live by—and the need to engage those folk in order to take them with us on this journey.
Okay, but how do you make sure that what people such as that farmer say when they meet you feeds into the co-design of the policy that will affect them on the ground in the future? It is one thing to meet people, but how do you ensure that that shows up in the policy?
I think that you are asking me whether I am hearing them or simply listening to them. Every time I have such conversations, I take them away, chew them over, rack my brains and think, “How do we make that work? Is that gonnae work for them? If this is gonnae be a problem, how do we mitigate that?” That is the job. That is what we have to do.
We will not always get it right. We will not always be able to say, “You know what? We can fix that,” because we cannot always fix things. However, I will do my utmost to hear what people are saying and to work out how I can make that fit into what we are trying to do and how the system will allow them to be a part of that process. That is in my thinking all the time. It is not easy.
I understand that it is not easy, but I am also a bit concerned about the fact that that is all in your thinking—I hope that it has been disseminated across your team.
Let me clarify. There is a whole team of people who feed into that. I do not just sit on my bed thinking, “That’s what we’re gonnae do.”
What happens is that I will say, “How about if we do this?” and the army of people behind me will say, “You could do that, minister, but these will be the consequences.” Then I have to say, “All right, okay, I’ll need to have a rethink.” There is a whole army of people looking at this, but, ultimately, it will be up to me and the cabinet secretary to say where we are going to go.
Thank you, minister, and your officials, for your answers so far.
It was clear from last week’s evidence session that the Government is using various methods of communication. I asked a question about that, and some witnesses said that it would be good to have more face-to-face communication, so it is good to hear the minister saying that the Scottish Government is going to agricultural shows and so on. I also take his point that farmers actually have to come to say hello and engage with what the Government is offering, but what steps is the Government taking to measure the effectiveness of its communication strategy?
That is a fair point. I will turn to George Burgess to explain how we measure that.
Now that you have asked me that question, I remember being on this committee when we were concerned about the number of people who were taking up the schemes, because that was not happening quickly enough. I distinctly remember the convener, in particular, saying that people were not taking up the schemes, which meant that the message was not getting out.
We now know that the numbers have risen exponentially, which is a measure of whether our message is getting out. I do not know whether there is a technical thing that we do to measure engagement—I honestly cannot tell you that—but I do know that we get the results of the things that we are putting out and how that transfers into people taking action. A huge number of people are now getting involved in the things that have been made available to them, which is in stark contrast to where we were 18 months to two years ago, when I sat on this committee.
The minister has said most of what I would want to say. It is going to be very difficult to say that a farmer has done something as a result of meeting the RPID team at a particular show, but that is all part of the general communications. We have letters, face-to-face meetings and social media, and different people will get the information from different sources.
To be positive, the NFUS has done a good job of communicating the measures to its members. Part of its remit is to support its membership, and the roadshow work that Jonnie Hall and Martin Kennedy have done has been quite positive. There are people who will listen to them who might be less inclined to listen to the Government. Those things have worked together and, particularly in connection with measures on preparing for sustainable farming, we have seen a significant increase in uptake, as the minister said.
George has just made a really fundamental point. The roadshows that Jonnie and Martin did have been incredibly valuable for exactly that reason. If farmers hear a Government minister such as me sitting here, talking about policy, policy, policy and what that means for them, they go, “That’s just the Government,” but when their president and their—I do not actually know what Jonnie Hall does—
He is the director of policy.
When their president and their director of policy are going around the country saying, “You need to be aware of this,” that is tremendously effective. I am delighted that we have a working relationship with the NFUS and can have conversations and say, “We need to get this out to your members. What’s the best way to disseminate that? We will do our bit as Government, but, if you do your bit, too, through your relationship with your members, that helps us to get the information out there.” That is a fundamental point.
That is helpful, but that is not part of the co-development or co-design; it is about delivering what the policy is going to be. Having the NFUS going out there and saying how it is going to be is different from talking about the issues.
I would challenge that. When Jonnie Hall and Martin Kennedy of the NFUS did their roadshows, they were doing what Neil Wilson spoke about last week. They were gathering voices, concerns and information as they went along, and they told us that, by and large, people were buying into this and thinking,“Okay—I can get behind this. It feels okay and we’re comfortable with what’s coming down the road.” That is part of the co-design. If they had done 15 roadshows and come back and said, “Look, this is an absolute disaster. We cannae get people tae buy intae this,” we would have had to stop and think, “Okay. What do we do now?”
I suppose my point is that there is still confusion about ARIOB. I am glad that Mandy Callaghan suggested that she will set out exactly what it is. We keep hearing that ARIOB is really important. Kate Rowell said:
“Things are discussed, everyone around the table gives their opinion”.
Pete Ritchie said:
“We have spent a lot of time on very small institutional issues with the delivery aspect of the rural payments and inspections division”
and on
“tweaking small details”.—[Official Report, Rural Affairs and Islands Committee, 12 March 2025; c 17, 16-17]
However, when it came to the crunch, the panel more or less agreed that, although it is not a decision-making body, ARIOB has, to date, made no tangible difference to policy direction.
That is simply not the case.
That was a panel of witnesses, two of whom sit on ARIOB.
Convener, I fully understand that. I sat and listened to the meeting, and I was really confused and disappointed that that is what the committee was being told.
The convener is absolutely spot on that ARIOB is not, and never was, a decision-making forum. I think that it was Beatrice Wishart who asked whether we take a vote. The answer is that, no, we do not. Ultimately, the only people who will make decisions will be me and the cabinet secretary, as the elected representatives. We were elected to do the job, so we will make the decisions and stand by those decisions, one way or the other.
On the point that ARIOB has made no tangible difference to policy direction, Mandy Callaghan has been involved with it for far longer than I have, so I will let her give examples of where ARIOB has gone through its process and that has made a tangible difference.
ARIOB was set up a couple of years ago, and, as George Burgess mentioned, there were discussions early on. For example, papers were perhaps presented on a proposition and people were asked, “What do you think of it?” Arguments were then discussed as to whether it was right or wrong.
From an official’s perspective, we have done quite a lot of work on two key things. One is to align the work that it is doing with the resources that we have internally. If it debates and discusses an issue but we do not have the capability, capacity and people in the civil service to take it on, it becomes old and lost and people get frustrated. We have therefore aligned the work plan with the available resources so that, when we are taking issues to ARIOB, we are taking them at a time when we are ready to do something with them.
Some of that has been around big, visionary stuff that is quite hard to get to an answer on. We are trying to explore quite big, visionary concepts with it, which will become more specific over the next few months. However, we are starting quite high, which may feel quite challenging and very different from where we have been.
At the same time, we are also doing specific things when ministers are on the cusp of making a decision. That is, when we have already had those big, high-level discussions, we are then bringing it down and saying, “These are the options that are left.” Obviously, we do not share advice that is given to ministers, as is standard; it is about looking through those options and presenting them in an open way so that, just before ministers make a decision, they are also hearing that debate and discussion. That is how we are trying to specifically align the decision-making process with the things that ARIOB is saying. There are times when ARIOB members will be saying opposing things, and that is the debate that ministers need to hear in order to then be able to make a decision.
It is very difficult to say that ARIOB has made a particular thing happen, because that is not its role. However, from my perspective, at every single ARIOB meeting, I come away with a big list of things that we are doing differently as a result of that meeting.
Although I am disappointed at some of the stuff that was said in your meeting last week, I give the commitment that I will ask for it to be put on the agenda for the next ARIOB meeting that we will have a discussion about whether people feel that they are disenfranchised or disengaged or that this is not working for them. We will have that conversation and work out how to take matters forward. That co-design is essential to our getting this right. It is not something that we can do ourselves. If we do, we will get it wrong. When we go back to ARIOB—I am not sure when the next meeting is—we will have it on the agenda. We will have a discussion about why people are feeling the way that they are. That way, at least we will air some of the grievances that youse iterated here last Wednesday.
10:15
That would be helpful. If you could correspond with the committee on how that goes, it would help to give us an understanding of what is happening at ARIOB.
I am going to move on—I am conscious of the time. I have questions from Rhoda Grant and Tim Eagle.
My question follows on from Tim Eagle’s question about the computer system. Last week, we heard real concerns that the computer system was a blocker on policy and that the policy was designed around the system rather than the system being designed around policy. How much of a blocker is it, and what is being done to make sure that it is not?
Nick Downes will speak to the technical aspects in a moment, but I can assure you that it is not the computer that decides policy, which was what was implied at last week’s meeting.
Given some of the comments that were made last week, it would be fair and appropriate to note that the existing system is currently extremely performant. Its system availability is more than 99 per cent, and, in the last scheme year, it has already paid out £475 million. We cannot stop doing that, because we rely on that system to deliver the business of RPID, to process agricultural payments and to support a range of other agencies.
Again, it is fair to note that the core technologies on which that system was designed were selected in 2012. In IT terms, that is a long time ago. It is also fair to note that the system—or those capabilities, because it is a range of systems—was designed to serve the common agricultural policy of the time and to minimise disallowance. Those purposes are evolving and changing in line with the policy that is being developed.
We have not been sitting on our hands since then. We have been modernising a lot of those systems, applications and capabilities, making investments in the infrastructure on which they sit and the cyber capabilities that sit around them and, indeed, evolving and piloting new capabilities that sit within it to provide a solid platform implementation of the agricultural reform programme.
The target operating model work that has been referenced several times is particularly important in setting out the clear business and technical capabilities that will be required from a future system. As the IT provision part of the agriculture and rural economy directorate, it is our job to align and develop our capabilities to serve those needs.
Why are we hearing that the system is a blocker on policy direction?
We are in a transition at the moment, because we have a set of capabilities in the system that deliver the CAP. What we need now is to develop that, and that is what the co-production is about. It is very difficult to do that for some of those things, but we also have great opportunities to exploit things that did not exist back in 2012. We want to make sure that we are plotting those capabilities in the best way and for the next 20 years. We want to get that right.
There is a transition between what we have now and where we need to go. The future policy is not being limited by what we currently have, because we would expect those capabilities to change. However, the transition means that we need to keep making payments and supporting farmers as they are and make the changes that are possible for the immediate term. It is a transition, so the “right now” is limited by some of the capabilities that we have, but we are transitioning from where we are now to something that looks far more modern and capable of delivering that full vision.
I cannot remember who it was that said it, but somebody said something last week—forgive me if I misheard or I am misquoting—about how the system is more focused on delivering on time than on developing the new system. I find that curious, because I am absolutely committed to ensuring that the funds get into farmers’ bank accounts on time. I clearly remember—as anyone who was involved in agriculture at the time will—that, when we transitioned from the previous single-farm payment to the basic payment scheme, there were massive delays, which caused mayhem in farmers’ bank accounts and cash flows. The critical point is that we continue to make payments on time.
The fact is that the Government has made a rod for its own back in when those payments are made. They were made earlier and earlier when they could have been made much later, and we could have given ourselves more time, but we got so good at it that the payments came in earlier. That became the accepted norm for farmers, when, in reality, the payments could have been delayed until much later in the season.
The delivery of payments is one of the most fundamental things to ensure that we get right every time. The team that is in place is doing a phenomenal job, and I want to ensure that it continues to do that job.
No one is arguing that payments should not be made on time. The big issue is that we cannot change what we pay. If you want to increase screening and put more into the system to change the direction, the computer system will not work. Are we really saying that we need a new system? I remember when the system came in. It was a disaster. I sat in committee sessions looking at what went wrong. At that point, it was clear that it could not be put right. Are we really in need of a new system? We have to keep the current one in order to make the payments, but, if we are going to change what we do and move away from the CAP, we need a new system that will do that.
George Burgess knows the history of that.
Can we teach an old dog new tricks? Yes, and we have done. The system was not set up to prepare for sustainable farming, but my colleagues were able to create mechanisms to allow that new set of grants to be paid. We are implementing the whole-farm plan this year, which required IT and guidance changes to be made to the single application form. Those changes have now been made, the window has just opened and more than 100 farmers have already gone in, so the system is clearly working.
It is not a case of “Computer says no”. That said, there are areas where we have not been immediately able to do what we wanted. Mr Eagle mentioned the work that was done, largely on the basis of the work of the farming-led groups, to identify the menu of options for tier 2. At the moment, we are not able to implement that exactly as we would want to, hence the work that we are doing on enhanced greening. It would be possible to implement it, but it would probably take a fair amount of time and money. It would perhaps not require a whole new system, but enhancements would have to be made to allow us to do it.
There is a balance to be struck. Do we want to spend north of £100 million—I think that that is what it cost the last time round—on a computer system or do we want the limited capital resources that we have to go out to farms, to help farmers to make the transition that we need them to make? There is a balance of how much we invest in our own systems versus how much we invest in the farming sector.
We are way over time. Tim Eagle has a question, but it must be very to the point.
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?
The changes for 2026 are being made so that we can use the capabilities that we have now—we have that assurance for 2026. A bit more detail is being developed for the work that we are doing for 2027. It is important that we build capabilities for the longer term and that we consider what we have now and how to transition. We may need to adapt and build on what we already have, or we may have to build something new and innovative. We still have to do the work to map that out.
I do not know whether Nick Downes has anything to add.
That is where the target operating model work is particularly important, because it will give us the space and time to breathe. One of the criticisms in Audit Scotland’s report on the rural payments IT project was that the requirements were laid only days in advance of the build and it was difficult to keep up. Globally, we know enough to recognise that that is a really bad and fraught way to go about an IT implementation.
Tim Eagle referenced the number of applications or systems, as you would recognise them, when he worked in the department, but we have more than that now. I provide an assurance to the committee that I would in no way, shape or form advise that we try to do something at scale in the way that we did with the CAP futures programme. The IT world has moved on since then. Trying to lift out an entire engine block and drop in a new one is neither best practice nor something that I would advocate. Our approach to implementing the system will be to evolve and add new capabilities—I think that the minister used the word “revamp”. We will focus on continuous improvement, modernisation and exploring new capabilities such as low-orbit satellite imagery rather than trying to do a wholesale block replacement of what is already there.
I am no IT expert. If that is the way to do it, that is great. However, why did Jonnie Hall and Kate Rowell, who are two leading, significant industry figures, say at last week’s committee meeting that the IT system is a problem? If the communication is working, why did they give me that message?
Perhaps they are not IT experts either.
Fine.
I have two brief questions. The minister has previously spoken about system limitations, but there was a technical upgrade between 2022 and 2024, which was the largest technical update to the payment system. How much did that upgrade cost? At the last meeting at which she gave evidence, Ms Callaghan said that the future cost of updates is not yet known. Can you give us a ballpark figure for the cost of the upgrade that we have just gone through and the estimated cost of future upgrades to deliver the Government’s ambitions?
There are three questions in there. The first was about the cost of the middleware upgrade. As I understand it, that is the single biggest upgrade of a middleware product that the auditors could find globally. It cost in the region of £4million—I will write to the committee with the exact figure. Forgive me, but I do not know it off the top of my head.
Industry standard practice would recommend that 20 per cent of the initial build cost be spent on any system annually for maintenance and modernisation. That is not to introduce new capabilities or new schemes, as we would understand it; it is about keeping the system cybersecure, modern, in support and performant. All the money that we are spending on our modernisation programme comes out of my division’s budget, from the agriculture and rural economy directorate and the digital directorate. We are not asking for additional programmatic cost, and we have a rolling programme of legacy modernisation that we are continuing to deliver.
Minister, you said that you would write to us with further detail, which would be useful. In the last evidence session, you gave a commitment to write to us about any potential issues in the development of the system. Do you believe that the existing system is, and will continue to be, good value for money for taxpayers?
I believe that, if the people behind the system who are employed to do the job are giving me the reassurance that it can deliver, then it is value for money. At any time, if they have concerns about it, they will bring the issue to me.
I thank the minister and his officials for joining us, and I appreciate the extra time that you have spent with us, as we covered a lot of ground.
I suspend the meeting to allow a change of witnesses.
10:30 Meeting suspended.Air ais
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