Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you very much for sharing your experience. I will bring in Peter Drummond and then we will move on to further questions.

Thank you very much for highlighting that part of the issue.

Thanks. We will go back to Marie McNair’s question about the likely cost of mitigating or replacing defective RAAC. David Baird has some expertise in that.

Chris, do you want to comment on that?

I am interested in the value-for-money aspect. It is great to hear of the number of projects that have been undertaken so far, but is the islands team working with the Scottish Futures Trust to look at the community wealth building aspects of these issues? Is there a focus on projects that have the potential to build community wealth? For example, if one island in an island grouping had a wind turbine but another could not have one, would work on community wealth building be done on the other island because it could not have a wind turbine?

For clarity, how many members of the panel are there now?

Do you have examples of that? I am aware of the nursery in Kirkwall, which involves quite a big amount. I could extrapolate that out to community wealth building, but a wind turbine that generates money would be a better example.

Obviously, one of the reasons why we have an islands plan is that the experiences and challenges of people living on islands are extremely different from those of people living in mainland Scotland.

We are aware of the great work that is happening through the island team being based on islands, which is very helpful, but last year we heard concerns from Argyll and Bute Council that the members of the investment panel felt “remote from the islands”. The SFT then updated the committee to say that only one member was based on an island. Could the cabinet secretary update us on the changes to membership and how the panel engages with local authorities and island communities?

My question is also about money in the budget. In the previous budget, £35.8 million was allocated to the agri-environment climate scheme—or AECS—while £485 million went to direct payments in pillar 1. That means that less than 5 per cent of the agricultural support-related services budget went to the scheme that is dedicated to tackling the climate and nature crises.

It is great to see that the Government has consulted on being able to cap direct payments, which would free up more money to support climate and nature measures in farming, but what can be done before the new framework is brought in to direct more public funding to public goods?

I understand that the framework will set that out and will provide the powers. When I visit farms and crofts, I hear about the need for certainty. We have a tricky situation: it takes time to take a bill through the legislative process, but we must take action sooner rather than later. I hear about the national testing programme, but it seems that we are still not hearing a message that brings certainty. People are getting stuck on the idea of the agriculture bill. Can we get payments in place sooner to move people in the right direction?