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Liz Barron-Majerik mentioned the benefits of sending policy signals—to use a phrase that Kirsty Jenkins used—about some of the issues, such as five-year funding for agriculture. I appreciate that you might not like me making this point, convener, but the Scottish Parliament does not know from month to month what its income will be next year, never mind in five years, not only on agriculture but on any other portfolio. Given some of what we have heard today, would it be worth another try to get a UK agriculture minister to come and explain that situation, given that the previous one told us that he was unavailable indefinitely?

Ministers will have to have regard to—I know that that is a loaded and specifically intended phrase—the climate change plan and other duties in law, and they must align their actions to the forthcoming climate change plan and the biodiversity plan. Can you tell me what “have regard to” means in this context, or what you understand ministers will have to do to comply with those areas of policy?

Is there a timescale in your minds for producing the code of practice on sustainable and regenerative agriculture?

But you recognise that voices in the sector have raised concerns about such scenarios.

Much of the debate around the bill will focus on what constitutes sustainable and regenerative agriculture. What is your definition of sustainable and regenerative agriculture as it applies to the bill?

That is comprehensive. Does anyone else want to come in?

Yes, it is. Ewen Scott, you mentioned that areas of policy in the bill could not be in conflict with anything on the statute book. Can you elaborate on what you had in mind that you were trying to avoid doing?

The policy memorandum sets out the workings of assimilated rules and sunset clauses, but can you say something about whether the retained CAP rules will, at some point, need to be replaced with new regulations? How will that be achieved, and how will things be maintained into the future?

As you will be aware, one of the tensions that exist around all legislation is that people want to know about the accompanying guidance before there is legislation to enable such guidance to exist; you cannot produce such guidance until the legislation is produced.

Nonetheless, there is a lot of legitimate interest in what the guidance might look like. Can you say any more about what you will be doing to try to give stakeholders a flavour of what shape the guidance is likely to take as the bill progresses, and how that will be managed?

I want to come at the final couple of questions from a different angle. Are you, in the SWOT analysis and the preparations that you are making as officials, scenario planning the threats that might be associated with divergence being frustrated in any way by the legislation that we are referring to? For instance, Jonnie Hall of the NFUS has told the Parliament:

“with the Subsidy Control Bill coming into place as well as the internal market act, I am convinced that it will not be long before certain agricultural producers in England who are more aligned to the type of agriculture that we have in Scotland—people in Northumberland and Cumbria, down the Pennines and in the west country ... —will see the support payment and the way in which Scottish Government is underpinning and deriving new outcomes from Scottish agriculture as being more advantageous than what they are being given from DEFRA.” —[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 16 December 2021; c 10.]

Do you have to plan around the possibility that these pieces of legislation might be used to frustrate the Scottish Government’s intentions in these areas?