Seòmar agus comataidhean

I have a quick question on statutory instruments and Scottish statutory instruments.

Prior to Christmas, the Scottish Government withheld agreement to a statutory instrument that related to border controls, and a Scottish statutory instrument was brought in, which I believe we will look at next week. Can you go through the process that the Scottish Government follows to decide whether to agree to an SI or put in place an SSI that, ultimately, has the same outcome? At what point do you make the decision to agree to a UK-wide SI or to bring in your own? We saw an example of that with the decision on the border controls instrument, which was taken at the very last minute.

Agenda item 4 is consideration of a piece of subordinate legislation, and I refer members to committee paper 3.

As some provisions were made under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, we first need to consider whether the parliamentary procedure that the Scottish Government designated to the instrument is appropriate.

Members will note that the negative procedure has been designated, and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee agreed with that designation when it considered the matter on 7 December.

Are members content that the negative procedure is appropriate for SSI 2021/432? Please type N in the chat box if you do not agree, otherwise I will presume that members are content.

Members are content.

We will continue our consideration of the instrument under agenda item 5. The instrument, which came into effect on 1 January, extends a previous derogation allowing chilled meat to be imported from countries in the European Economic Area, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Switzerland. The derogation is extended to 30 June 2022. The instrument also removes, for the period that transitional arrangements are in place, the health certification requirements for animal products that would otherwise have applied from 1 January 2022.

No motion to annul the instrument has been lodged. If any member has a comment to make about the instrument, they should type R in the chat box.

Since no member has indicated that they wish to make a comment, are members content to note the instrument? Again, if any member wishes to make a recommendation about the instrument, they should type R in the chat box.

I see no comments, so members are content to note the instrument.

That brings us to the end of our public session and we will now move into private session.

I can see no volunteers.

I am conscious of the time. Alasdair Allan has a brief supplementary question.

I think that you were just putting that on the record rather than expecting a response from the cabinet secretary.

Since I see no further questions from members, I thank the cabinet secretary and her officials for taking part. It has been most useful, and I am sure that we will visit some of those topics again in the near future.

Okay. We will move on to Beatrice Wishart.

We will move on to the theme of the climate and nature crisis.

Thank you for that. Before I let Rachael Hamilton in, I have a practical question. We are very much aware that things such as slurry injection equipment are expensive and it is sometimes not economically viable for smaller agricultural units to purchase them. What consideration is being given to opening up some of these agricultural capital grants to agricultural contractors and people working through machinery rings and so on, who do not have agricultural holding numbers, so that we can get the biggest bang for our buck and the best return for our investment?

James, would you like to come in?

We move to questions from Jenni Minto.