Chamber and committees

We see the impact of that through the UK seafood fund. I touched on some of those points when I had the discussion with the committee on the budget. That duplicates what we can fund in Scotland. There is a lack of clarity. I think that it will be confusing for those who are applying to the marine fund in Scotland—which we have had in place during the past year—because that is direct spend in a devolved area. We believe that that funding should be for the devolved Parliaments to allocate and distribute. Caroline wants to come in.

The guidance would be a technical document. We would not look to consult on the technical guidance, but consultation will be undertaken on the strategies that I have talked about that are currently in development. That is the point at which that would be done.

On timescales, I will ask Caroline Cowan to talk about what happened when we established the marine fund Scotland and when we were able to have the guidance available for that.

I cannot give a definitive timescale at the moment, but I would be happy to keep the committee updated as to when we intend to launch a round of funding.

We have continued to raise that issue with the UK Government. Because we established the marine fund, there had been little engagement on the part of the UK Government in terms of—

That is what I asked Caroline Cowan to outline.

Yes.

I believe that the framework will. As I said in my opening statement, the voices of our rural and island communities have been absolutely vital throughout the process. That engagement has been key in developing the draft NPF4. I also highlight that the draft is out to consultation so, of course, any suggestions that we get through that will feed into the finalised framework.

The engagement that took place in the lead-up to publishing the draft NPF4 was extensive. We commissioned research from our policy teams and from external sources to look at the shape of planning policy and how that can help us to develop thriving rural communities. In addition, we had the call for ideas on NPF4—I am sure that the minister will want to give details on that. Furthermore, the Scottish Rural Network undertook activities through the Scottish Rural Parliament, and the chief planner met the heads of rural planning authorities.

All that has been vital and has helped to shape the draft that we have before us, which is out to consultation. I will hand over to the minister so that he can cover any further aspects of engagement.

We have had a consultation on that issue, which I think has just closed recently. The consultation was on the statutory guidance for ministers and other public authorities, who must have due regard to the five guiding principles on the environment in the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Act 2021. The guidance sets out our strategic approach to environment policy, including the precautionary principle as it relates to the environment and how that should be used and applied by decision makers. The consultation has just closed, and we will consider the responses to it closely.

That is something that we are actively addressing as well. As you said, we have the Griggs review that will come shortly. We undertook that independent review to see how we could make the regulation process and development more responsive, transparent and efficient. We will, of course, consider the outcome of that review closely.

Was the other part of your question about the knowledge that is within local planning?

We will have to take careful consideration of that when we look to set the criteria for the new fund and the activities that we would like to fund. Ideally, we could do so much more, if we got the full allocation of £62 million, which we were right to expect and that we deserve.

What makes the situation worse is the fact that, in previous years, we had received an extra £5 million on top of our EMFF allocation in recognition of the significant marine resources that we have in Scotland. However, the UK Government has decided not to give us that uplift. Therefore, the funding that we have is significantly less than the funding that we had previously.

We continue to raise the issue with the UK Government. The matter continues to be a cause of significant frustration and disappointment. We could do so much more for our marine environment, our coastal communities and our fishing industry if we had the full allocation of £62 million.