Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning, and welcome to the 12th meeting in session 6 of the Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee. I remind members who are using electronic devices to switch them to silent mode.

Our first item of business is consideration of draft regulations. I refer members to committee papers 1 and 2. I welcome to the committee Lorna Slater, the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity, along with her officials Clarinda Burrell, Rachel Coutts and James Nott, who join us remotely. I am sure that this will not be the only time that we shall meet the minister. I invite her to make an opening statement.

Thank you. That is really useful. A lot of the policies that we have discussed are about local procurement, local food production and reducing food miles. The Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill, which is coming up, is pretty empty, but there is scope for it to deliver some of the expectations of stakeholders. Do we need more funding at local level to drive local policies? Should more funding be devolved to local authorities and public bodies to address the priorities in the Highlands, Dumfries and Galloway or the Scottish Borders, for example? Do we need to change the method of funding to ensure that our aspirations for reducing food miles are addressed? That question goes first to Andrew Bauer.

I have laid hedges and whatever in the past. We are talking about an emergency here but, sadly, while the majority of farmers are great custodians, some are still set on ripping out hedges to make it easier for big machinery to get in to cut grass or whatever. We see that daily.

Is now the time for the Government to take action and introduce legislation to stop that happening? The financial penalties for removing hedges do not appear to make any difference. This will be controversial, and I repeat that only a small minority of farmers are continuing the practice, but, given the biodiversity and climate change emergency, is there an argument that legislation should be rapidly introduced to stop the destruction of habitats, whether those are hedges, ponds or whatever?

You can carry on from where you were, Michael. What is your position on legislation to ensure that habitats are not removed?

Thank you—

We have lost David. While we are getting him back, I will move on to Alasdair Allan’s questions.

To give you a start, I will ask you a question that was going to lead on from that.

Rachael Hamilton touched on the additional costs for organic, public procurement and so on. However, the prices of agricultural inputs are rising and we are unlikely to see a reduction in food costs for consumers. If we try to transition, there will be quite a squeeze. Where will that funding come from? What mechanism would allow farmers like you to continue to produce high-quality food and be profitable?

I will go back to Ariane Burgess for some further questions, and then I will move on to Karen Adam.

That was nice and short.

Thanks, David. That was useful.

Before I bring in Andrew Bauer, I will give him his proper title—he is the head of foot and footprint at SAC Consulting.