Seòmar agus comataidhean

I thank all three of you for coming along this morning. The session has been very helpful—I have certainly become aware of the more nuanced issues that everyone has raised. If we have any other questions, we will put them to you in letter form. I now close the public part of our meeting, and we move into private session for our next item.

Welcome to the fourth meeting of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee in session 6. Our first item is consideration of a decision on taking in private item 3, which will be an opportunity for members to reflect on the evidence that they hear during this morning’s meeting. Are members agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you both for your responses. What has clearly come through the conversation this morning is the point around councillors’ remuneration and the acknowledgement of their role, and how improvement there would encourage people to come forward. The committee has already been talking about that and it is perhaps a piece of work that we need to take on and explore. That would be fitting, because the committee members include three current councillors and a former councillor, so we have a valuable perspective in that regard.

I appreciate your contributions this morning. We have to wrap up this session now, but I give you the opportunity to say whether there is anything that has not come out at all in the discussion. I see that you are both shaking your heads. Okay. Thank you so much for speaking to us today.

I have a question for Karen Greaves, which I will put in writing, on her mention of a tweak to the Kirkwall boundary. I will seek clarity in a letter to her about what she meant by that, because my understanding is that if we accept the boundaries, they must be accepted as they currently stand.

We will have a brief suspension.

I welcome our second panel of witnesses this morning: Councillor Margaret Davidson, leader of Highland Council, who joins us by telephone; Douglas Hendry, executive director of Argyll and Bute Council; and Derek Mackay, governance and elections manager for Comhairle nan Eilean Siar.

We have a range of questions, and I will ask the opening question. Are you satisfied with the recommendations that are set out in Boundaries Scotland’s report regarding your council areas? I ask Douglas Hendry to start. We will then go to Margaret Davidson and Derek Mackay.

Thank you. We will probably have a bit of time to explore some of the detail of those differences. Margaret, can you share your perspective in that regard?

We are getting to the time when we need to wrap up. There are some questions remaining, on which we could write to you, but I want to give you each the opportunity to talk for a minute or so if there is anything else that you want to tell us this morning, while we are all here together. If you feel strongly that there is something that you want to let us know, I will give you a bit of time for that. We will start with Margaret Davidson, followed by Derek Mackay and Douglas Hendry.

Thank you for joining us this morning, cabinet secretary. It is good to hear you laying out the diverse challenges that you are facing and the work to transition our rural areas in response to the climate emergency and biodiversity loss. You talked about this a little in response to Jim Fairlie’s questions, but I am curious to hear some more detail on how that will show up in new agriculture and land use policies.

The programme for government talks about doubling the amount of land that is used for organics. Currently, I think, 1.9 per cent of land is used for organics in Scotland. The European Union is calling for organics to account for 25 per cent. Obviously, we cannot suddenly make that leap. Do you see the doubling of the amount of land that is used for organics, which would still be a small amount, as a step in the direction of larger increases in the future? We have five years in which to do that doubling, and it takes time for land to transition to organic production. Underneath all of that, we are really talking about improving soil fertility and soil health if we want to provide something for future generations. I would love to hear the cabinet secretary’s thoughts about organic farming in the long term.

Thank you.

I thank Jim Fairlie for deepening the conversation and the cabinet secretary for her answers. Jim and I will be having a chat over tea about regenerative and organic farming and how they work together. Perhaps they are a bit like Russian dolls.

Moving on to the product from organic soil—food and drink—I know that we have been talking about long-term plans and the future, but the committee is also keen to hear about the implications of EU exit on the food and drink sector, the functioning of imports and exports nine months on from the end of the transition period and whether there are any on-going issues in any particular sectors.