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Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 12 March 2025
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Displaying 2045 contributions

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Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 8 September 2021

Jim Fairlie

I am aware that I am taking up a lot of time, but I have two more brief questions for the cabinet secretary.

First, the NFU has written to Kevin Foster to ask for a 12-month Covid recovery visa. Do you know whether it has received a response? Have you had any communication with the UK Government in order to get that visa put in place?

I have only just learned about the second thing that I want to ask you about. There is something in the new programme for government about the living wage for agricultural workers. The Agricultural Wages (Scotland) Order (No 68) 2021 takes agricultural wages well above the minimum wage. I do not know where the balance is. Will the order be scrapped, or is there something else that we do not know about at this stage?

Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 8 September 2021

Jim Fairlie

Again, I apologise to Ariane Burgess—I do not want to steal her position here—but I visited a regenerative farm that is working very closely with Soil Association Scotland, which appreciates that there are slight differences in this matter. I encourage the cabinet secretary to have a word with Soil Association Scotland on what it is doing on the regenerative side of things.

Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 8 September 2021

Jim Fairlie

I am sorry to keep coming back to you, cabinet secretary, but, given the size of Scotland’s food and drink industry, it is vital that we look at that area in detail. This might not be the right meeting in which to do that, but there are a couple of issues that I want to raise.

Where is the food and drink recovery plan going? What will have to be done in that respect? I know that 60 food and drink businesses have signed up to the business development academy and that every major industry body has signed up to delivering it, but I want to ask about the proposed sustainably Scottish brand. What does it mean? What will it deliver? Where does it fit in? How will our current brands fit in with it? How will we define “sustainably Scottish”?

I know that that is a packed question, but it would be helpful if you could give us a broad overview of your thinking on some of those issues.

Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 8 September 2021

Jim Fairlie

The NFU wrote to Kevin Foster, who is the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Future Borders and Immigration), to ask for a 12-month Covid visa in order to get over the short-term supply chain workforce issues in the agricultural sector. Do you know whether that visa has been granted? Have you had any communication with the UK Government about that?

Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 8 September 2021

Jim Fairlie

I would like us to come back to the sustainably Scottish brand at some point, because we have brands that sit within the Scotch brand. Where will they fit in? Are we going to absorb them into the sustainably Scottish brand? We need to drill into that, and I would appreciate our being able to come back to that in the future.

Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 8 September 2021

Jim Fairlie

It is clear from that that we need to keep a very close eye on where divergences are going to be and where we could be brought into conflict with the UK Government as the policies develop. Is it fair to say that?

Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 8 September 2021

Jim Fairlie

I presume that you will bring us up to date if there is any progress on any of those issues.

Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 8 September 2021

Jim Fairlie

I am sorry to Ariane Burgess for interrupting her questioning, but I am keen to bore down into this matter a wee bit. Having been a hard-nosed farmer, I know that finances are usually the driver for making anyone do anything as far as having a sustainable business is concerned. Have you allocated an amount of money to persuade people to go organic, and have you done a cost benefit analysis of how much you are going to have to put in to do that?

Moreover, have you looked at the issue of organic farming versus regenerative agriculture? I do not want to set one against the other, but I have to tell Ariane that they are definitely not the same thing. Has the Government looked at regenerative as opposed to organic farming, or does it, like Ariane, consider them to be the same? How serious are you about pushing that area of farming in Scotland?

COVID-19 Recovery Committee

Scotland’s Strategic Framework

Meeting date: 2 September 2021

Jim Fairlie

Okay. When people are young, they think that they are invincible. We need to get over that mental block in the first place.

On the requirement for vaccine passports, is there likely to be any extension to the areas that we are talking about?

My next question is perhaps more directed to Mr Leitch. We know that the virus is in the community and, as Mr Swinney has said, we are trying to suppress it with the range of measures that we have in place. Is it accepted that the disease will continue to be with us? Are we trying to create community immunity while we manage the disease to the next stage?

COVID-19 Recovery Committee

Scotland’s Strategic Framework

Meeting date: 2 September 2021

Jim Fairlie

I have a final quick question, which relates to constituent requests overnight. I think that every committee member has talked about the flood of emails that we all had last night. I can almost answer this myself, but will the passport be time limited?