Seòmar agus comataidhean

Again, that is a technical question, so I will ask George Burgess to respond.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Again, I fundamentally disagree with you.

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—

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.

If we are gonnae talk about the IT system, I will let Nick Downes and Mandy Callaghan deal with it.