Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning again, cabinet secretary. I wantd to pick up on something that came up at our forestry round table. We are talking about increasing planting and attempting to increase the amount of timber grown in Scotland, but, for me, what came out strongly in our discussion was the challenge of getting people into various jobs in the supply chain and the forestry sector. I was wondering where in the budget there was support for doing more of that by, for instance, highlighting forestry as a job for young people. If we want to meet the targets and ambitions, and if we want Scotland to become a forest nation where, for example, we use home-grown timber to build housing, we need people to be excited about taking up roles in forestry and the respective supply chains.

We are aware of multiple strands of work that are being carried out by the marine directorate. Its commitments for this session of Parliament include fisheries management measures for marine protected areas and priority marine features, as well as work on fisheries stock assessments. I would like an update on the work on marine protected areas and priority marine features. There is a commitment to have that work completed by the end of this session, but is there enough resource in place for that and for the fisheries stock assessment? Will those tasks be carried out by different teams?

Thank you for those responses, but the root of my question was about whether there is enough resource in both places to meet those commitments. Is there enough funding in the budget?

Good morning to you, cabinet secretary and your officials. Dr Middlemas talked about change that is being developed in the background. Perhaps the counters are part of that, but I go back to Tim Eagle’s question, which I liked: what is the promise here? Can you explain the work that is happening in the background? I understand that it is about rolling all of this out in a package in the future to ensure that we do not have to come back to the issue.

It follows on from your bigger-picture question about protecting wild salmon, convener.

I thank the cabinet secretary for mentioning the wild salmon strategy and implementation plan—it would be good to see that information. In her opening statement, she said that the instrument is designed to regulate the “exploitation” of wild salmon. Do we need to reflect on that? If we want to protect wild salmon, maybe we need to change our language and talk about things that are designed to regenerate wild salmon rather than protect them from exploitation.

Language is important. Sitting on this committee, I notice that we talk a lot about exploiting Scotland’s nature—wild salmon and other animals. However, we should perhaps move towards talking about regeneration in the way that we are now talking about regenerative agriculture. That would be a good shift and it would help us to understand that what we are trying to do is regenerate a species rather than protect what little is left.

I want to thank Jackie Baillie for those very thoughtful comments. I do not fully understand this from what we have heard, as we did not get into it in our previous discussion, but is it the case that, if we were to annul the instrument, the Government and the marine directorate could work at pace to do what she is asking for? What has come up in evidence is that data is an issue, enforcement is an issue and action from the marine directorate is an issue, too.

I am concerned about the information that we have received from Fisheries Management Scotland. It is a difficult situation, because I feel that I do not have the information that I need to know whether the marine directorate can take action swiftly enough. My overall sense is that this instrument is working to protect Scotland’s iconic species, and I am therefore minded to vote against its annulment on the basis of our not having enough information.

I have a general comment. Colleagues have mentioned that there are two elements to the instrument. That has happened before, when the beef suckler scheme and good environmental status were conflated because the instrument was about compliance. I would appreciate it if the cabinet secretary acknowledged that the committee will be looking at a lot of SSIs and that, when two issues are put together and there is one issue on which we would like to do something different, that makes it very difficult for us to do our work. I want to put it out there that the cabinet secretary could bear that in mind when she introduces SSIs, because it would make it easier for us to address the issues that we really need to address.

I want to ask about the soil sampling part of the national test programme. It is good to hear that there is more uptake, but I am aware that not everyone is sampling their soil. I have become aware that we might need something like a pathway for people who are beginning; there are other people who are much deeper into soil sampling. What support will there be for that? As you know, we amended the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill to recognise that we need to support farmers to look at soil biology. Will that come into the national test programme, or will it be part of the direction of travel within the whole-farm plans?

That would be welcome. Thank you.

You said that getting information on effort and information on a river-by-river basis will take time. Are we talking about a few years?