Chamber and committees

An issue that has been talked about in the past is what checks and balances there should be on the actions that ministers have to take once the bill becomes an act. In particular, I am thinking about the code of practice. One of those checks and balances would relate to whether regulations under section 7 of the bill were subject to the negative procedure in Parliament.

That might be a very technical point, but it opens up the wider question of what scrutiny there should be of the decisions that ministers take on the back of the bill. I am particularly interested in hearing about the code of conduct, though.

Forgive me, convener, but we are talking about the second theme, are we not?

I am just thinking back to something that Sarah Skerratt said about ensuring that the objectives of support for communities align with the support for practitioners of agriculture and how they are not quite the same thing. I do not know whether the crofters in the room want to comment on this, but is there something distinctive about crofting in that, compared to most rural communities, a big slice of the community is engaged in agriculture? What should be different about that relationship when the funding model applies to crofting?

I appreciate that you will not like my saying this, but I suggest that we move to a vote on whether we should revert to the original agenda.

Thank you, convener. I appreciate the arguments that you made. However, the postponement came as a surprise to me. I appreciate that it is not the fault of people who cannot make it here because of the weather, but we have conducted meetings of the committee online or partly online, and we have had hybrid meetings in the past. We did that throughout the Covid pandemic, and other committees have handled stage 2 proceedings in that way.

Although the decision is ultimately at your discretion, committee members did not know about it. I want to register my curiosity about what we will do in the future if one or two people cannot make it, and I would like to know how we can avoid a situation in which we delay legislative proceedings indefinitely.

Is allowing farmers to develop one of the aims behind what would seem to be the policy objective of early payments or getting money into farmers’ accounts early? Does that represent a departure from policy elsewhere in the UK? If so, what is the budget implication of that? What is the plan for that?

Obviously—you would expect me to point this out—islands have very distinctive needs. Are we getting nearer to understanding of that being mainstreamed across departments?

On the subject of the marine directorate’s major research vessels, is an element of a spend-to-save approach required for the future? Are you making plans for how the vessels might have to be maintained or replaced in the future?

It has been briefly touched on, but you will not be surprised to hear me mention crofting. How many of the budget lines are seeking to meet the Government’s objectives on crofting? Can you say more about those aims, please?

What support for science and enforcement is provided in the budget? What changes have you had to make?