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Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) initially allocated £300,000 from its contractual innovation fund to support the delivery of vouchers provided as part of the National Satellite Broadband Scheme. Around £50,000 was utilised. This scheme has since been replaced by the UK Government’s Better Broadband Scheme and is now wholly funded by the UK Government. The balance of HIE’s original funding allocation for satellite has since been reallocated back to the innovation fund, and will be used to extend coverage across the region.

The Draft Budget document for this financial year sets out the Scottish Government's spending plans for 2016-17, including investment in digital projects.

The Scottish Government is taking a series of actions to increase the number of people that choose teaching as a career. These include building on the success of our 'Inspiring Teachers' campaign with a more substantial recruitment campaign to be launched by the end of the year.

In addition we are working with the university sector and the General Teaching Council for Scotland to introduce new and innovative routes into teaching, including distance learning routes, that are designed to be attractive to a wide range of potential student teachers. Throughout we will ensure that Scotland’s high level of teacher professional standards is maintained while enabling suitably qualified individuals to make a positive contribution in our schools.

After taking up my position of Cabinet Secretary for the Rural Economy I wrote to the Defra Minister of State, George Eustice in June 2016 asking if he agreed in principle to the repatriation of the levy. I also confirmed that I was in favour of moving ahead with the Levy Body Forum proposal, and urged that we should now move forward rapidly with a legislative measure that gives full effect to the Forum's solution to this long standing issue, in particular to identify a primary legislative vehicle which can achieve the repatriation. Mr Eustice recently replied to this letter and we are to meet to discuss this along with other important areas of work.

I raised the issue of releasing CAP convergence funds to Scottish farmers in a letter to the Secretary of State for Scotland, David Mundell, on 24 June 2016.

Despite this, and assurances earlier this year from Defra Minister, George Eustice, that Defra would carry out a review of how the UK CAP budget is distributed, there has been no reply to my letter so far.

We are working closely with a range of stakeholders to take forward the actions contained within ‘Organic Ambitions’, Scotland’s Next Organic Action Plan, that was published in January 2016. As part of this, we recently launched the new Organic Ambitions Fund to support the delivery of the plan and, specifically, to strengthen the organic supply chain and increase the demand for organic food.

As the Programme for Government made clear, we will continue discussions about the designation of the Haaf Net fishery on the River Annan. It is anticipated that any future legislative provisions required to deliver this commitment would be included within the planned Wild Fisheries Bill.

The Scottish Government anticipates that, once brought into force, Part nine of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 will give communities more access to land for food growing purposes. Part nine introduces new duties on local authorities which will increase transparency around the actions they take to provide allotments and growing spaces in their area and limits waiting times for an allotment.

The Scottish Government is working with the other UK Fisheries administrations with the aim of giving Scotland a greater say on how levy raised in Scotland is used. In addition to these on-going discussions, meetings have also been held with Seafish.

Scottish Ministers agreed with the community to wait for the final report from Voluntary Action Barra and Vatersay before considering whether to put a management committee in place or not. Marine Scotland awaits the final report from Voluntary Action Barra and Vatersay.