Seòmar agus comataidhean

Okay. So that is a commitment to meet us in person in the future.

Thank you. We move on to questions on animal welfare.

Good morning, and welcome to the third meeting in session 6 of the Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee. Before we begin, I remind all members to switch electronic devices to silent mode.

Our first item of business is evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Islands on her priorities within the remit for session 6. I welcome Mairi Gougeon, the cabinet secretary, but I put on record our disappointment that you are not with us in person, given the explicit desire of the committee that cabinet secretaries and ministers should appear in person. It is disappointing, given the nature of the session, that you are not with us today. I hope that, in the future, we can accommodate you and your officials in front of us in the committee room. I also welcome the cabinet secretary’s officials: George Burgess, deputy director, food and drink; John Kerr, head of agriculture policy division; and Caro Cowan, deputy director, funding and strategy for Marine Scotland.

I invite the cabinet secretary to make an opening statement, and then we will go to questions.

Could you give us more details about the fox control bill and where that might sit, given the potential overlap between this committee dealing with animal welfare and the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee dealing with land and forestry? Could you also give us details on the likely timescale for the introduction of the good food nation bill?

That raises a question. Màiri McAllan will be the lead minister; does that mean that the bill will come to our committee or the net zero committee?

Yes.

Thank you for that opening statement. It is clear that your remit includes the Scottish food agency, agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture, animal welfare and crofting, but there are significant overlaps with the portfolios of the various cabinet secretaries. In particular, your portfolio overlaps with that of the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport. Last week, we had a session on the food and drink supply chain, an area in which there is a potential overlap with the remit of the Economy and Fair Work Committee.

How do you intend to deal with those overlaps? How closely will you work with the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport, particularly when it comes to issues such as biodiversity and land reform?

We will jump back to fisheries. Karen Adam and Beatrice Wishart have questions on policy.

Last night, Alasdair Allan, one of our committee members, led a very interesting members’ business debate on ferries. Ferries are, by their very nature, 100 per cent connected to islands. If we were to look at further pieces of work on ferries to the islands and, potentially, the make-up of CalMac Ferries’s board and so on, are those issues that you would take up, given that they are solely an islands affair, or is that something that we would take up with the transport minister?

You touched on current issues in the food and drink supply chain. It is somewhat disappointing, but not surprising, that you focused on Brexit. Can you assure us that, when you look at the issues that face sectors such as food growing, you are taking the time to look at all the issues that they face and that you are not focusing on Brexit? We heard last week that there is a perfect storm. Covid is playing a huge part. The lack of labour that you mention is not solely down to Brexit; there is a lack of labour in Germany, Poland and other European countries. Are you looking fully at other issues?

One of those issues is the Scottish inability—at the moment—to grow our own rural workforce. There are issues in land-based training that we need to address fairly rapidly, to ensure that we have the workforce for the future, such as professional dairymen and land managers. How will you bring forward policies to improve our land-based training to ensure that we have a home-grown workforce, in order to address some of the issues that not only Brexit but the impact of Covid will bring?