Chamber and committees

I am happy to follow up with the committee on the work that we have already published in that regard, if that would be helpful.

Ideally, we would like more funding than we have at the moment. NFU Scotland has called for £1 billion-worth of funding from the UK Government, and I support that call. I listened to the NFU’s conference down south recently, and it is asking for £4.5 billion rather than the £2.4 billion that it has been given by the UK Government.

I think that we are entitled to more support than we currently receive. Considering the potential for what we can do for climate and nature, we should receive more funding than we currently do. That funding has remained static over the past few years, so we hope for and would welcome any increase to that.

Again, we are confusing two different things. The vast majority of the funding that we receive for this portfolio, and which goes into payments, is ring fenced by the UK Government, which has given us no certainty as to what any future budget allocation beyond next year will be, so we have no idea what is coming. Without that clarity, it is not possible for me to determine exactly what funding there will be or to make commitments about multi-annual funds that, as yet, I do not have.

That is why we set out, as I have already explained, how we can expect the overall envelopes in the budget to be allocated. However, the quantum of that funding will very much depend on the UK Government, because that is where the lion’s share of my budget comes from. It all depends on how much I get from the UK Government.

It is not possible for me to set that out at the moment. I cannot say that we would be looking to introduce other particular targets as part of the rural support plan, but we have statutory targets in relation to emissions reduction and the targets that are being looked at through the natural environment bill. Of course, we will have to consider those.

The bill will, ultimately, give us the powers to do any of those things, although we have a cap in place at the moment. The powers to enable us to manage payments are critical. I have had discussions about redistributive payments. I recognise that, quite broadly, there is support for front loading. However, I am not positioned to set out today exactly what that would look like or what form it would take, because that will be part of the consideration of what things might look like in the future framework. There will also be discussions with the people who will be impacted by that to consider how we would best progress things.

Absolutely. As I said, we have a cap in place at the moment. We do not have any businesses that are in support at the overall cap, which is just over £500,000. After that, there is tapering, at the level of 5 per cent, that applies to businesses that are in receipt of funding of more than £130,000 and 85 businesses are impacted by that. That is where things stand at the moment.

As we transition, we will set out more information. We would not change the cap or the taper or introduce front loading or redistribution without discussing that with the people who would be impacted. We would have those discussions before bringing forward such proposals.

Sorry. I used the figure of 3 hectares because that size was previously a determining factor for such support. It is not a case of my thinking being that someone who farms less land than that is a small producer and someone who farms more than that is a large producer. Obviously, it is not as simple as that, as you said.

This is about our enabling, through our measures, small producers and businesses to be supported, because we recognise how vital they are. I do not know whether John Kerr wants to come in with more information on that.

It is not possible for me to set out a timescale today. I hope that, in relation to the route map, I have been able to outline where we can expect to see changes and transition, but we still need to take forward that overall conversation.

Absolutely, and not least because we would have to undertake all the relevant impact assessments in relation to that as well. We would need to evaluate the system that has been in place to see whether it has worked and to make sure that we have the evidence base for any decisions on that.

We are considering the recommendations that have come from the DPLR Committee. I know that there were a few areas—well, another area—as well as that. Of course, we will consider that, as we will consider this committee’s recommendations, too.