Seòmar agus comataidhean

Angela Leitch has indicated that she would like to respond to Fulton MacGregor’s earlier question.

It is good to hear about all the work that the marine directorate is undertaking. Nevertheless, it is currently failing to deliver on its statutory duties under the Fisheries Act 2020, among other legislation, to achieve “good environmental status” in Scotland’s waters. To what extent is that for budgetary reasons?

You mentioned that you are looking at ways of being more transparent as well as looking at what data you can publish. Are you engaging with stakeholders on how that information could helpfully be shared with them?

You have previously discussed the national test programme with the committee. Given that the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Act 2024 has a new definition of soil biology, is that test programme going to be expanded so that it involves farmers looking at soil biology rather than just chemical inputs?

Is there a timescale for when you can start to say things more definitively?

Thank you.

Let us go back to the RSE report. As you know—we have had discussions on this—one of my proposed amendments to the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill would have required an environmental impact assessment as a condition of public funding for forestry schemes of more than 50 hectares. That would have affected only a minority of forestry schemes but would have ensured that the majority of land that was managed for forestry was managed responsibly. Will you outline why the Scottish Government takes the position that there is no need to conduct an EIA for large-scale forestry projects, unlike in most other sectors?

Is there a budgetary consideration in publishing such data? Does doing that work and making it public facing create more of a burden for the directorate?

Is the work on the bill holding up your ability to move forward with decisions around the tier 2 to 4 budget allocations, or is the hold-up to do with the fact that you do not know what budget allocation is coming from the United Kingdom?

Thanks for giving that detail.

You have cued me up nicely to go into a bit more detail.

Several stakeholders whom I am working with who have seen the rural support plan proposals say that they fall far short of previous commitments on transforming how farmers are supported. They are concerned that tier 2—my favourite topic—will not move beyond the greening status quo. To support more farmers to adopt sustainable regenerative agro-ecological approaches, tier 2 needs to have stronger conditions and more budget, at least within a couple of years.

I have a couple of questions on that. First, what work is the Scottish Government doing to explore how it can strengthen tier 2 over time to support more farmers on more farmland to implement more measures?