Chamber and committees

I want to be clear about this—I know that this will have been updated since the committee saw the budget papers. When I talked about the £15 million that we have agreed with the Deputy First Minister will be switched from resource to capital, this is an example of the funding that we have been able to move in that way. The allocation is still £3 million, but it is now capital rather than resource funding. After all, that is where the greatest need is. It shows why the agreement to switch that funding has been so important.

As for what has happened with the agricultural transformation fund over the past couple of years, when it was first used, over the course of 2022-23, it was £5 million. At the time, the money came through the sustainable capital agricultural grant scheme. It was used for more efficient slurry-spreading equipment and, indeed, for prioritising that spending on slurry, given the water environment regulations that had been introduced and the requirements that farmers were being expected to meet. In the light of all of that, we felt that it should be prioritised.

However, despite its being a £5 million fund and even though £4.6 million of it had been committed, the actual spend in the end was around £3 million. Over the course of last year, we made another pot of £5 million available to the fund. It was channelled through the agri-environment climate scheme, with the focus on slurry storage, and I think that just over £2 million was spent. Although this is a reduction, it should be seen against what we think that we can spend and what the actual spend has been over the past couple of years.

I am sorry—I said that that was why we needed it as capital spending. If we wanted to fund items similar to those that we had funded in previous years, we would need that funding to be capital rather than resource.

I am defining what falls within that overall budget line, so that we can be clear on where there has been any movement.

The common market organisation line had £9 million against it. That fund was unspent apart from those specific examples that I have talked about. It was felt that, rather than having a budget line against funding that had not been utilised, it was better to reallocate that resource to other areas where the funding could be spent. That is why it looks as though there has been a reduction in the pillar 1 other payments line.

As I said in a previous response, part of the issue in relation to the funding that we get from the UK Government is that it does not come through as a mix of resource and capital, as it used to. Therefore, we have had a fall in capital allocation over that time.

Together with all my colleagues, of course, my job in Cabinet and within the Scottish Government is to represent the needs of the farmers, crofters and land managers of rural Scotland and to ensure that we get the best possible support and prioritise it as best we can. I believe that, with the package that we have had, the capital settlement has been difficult, and difficult decisions have been made not only in this portfolio but in other areas.

You have highlighted some of the portfolios in Government where there has been an increase, but that is not the case right across Government, and there have been very significant cuts to capital budgets in other areas. In my portfolio in particular, the situation has been very difficult; for example, we have seen quite a significant shortfall in the capital required to deliver on the woodland grant schemes. It is a very disappointing settlement as a whole, but it is my job to do what I can with the funding allocations that we have and to ultimately fight that corner.

We have made really difficult decisions, but I believe that, with this budget and the fact that we have been able to secure that resource-to-capital switch, which has enabled us to do that bit more with capital funding in what were previously unfunded priorities in the portfolio, we are delivering as best we can within the settlement that we have.

It is really difficult going forward, as this is the last year in which we will have any clarity on a settlement and what that will look like. In other words, we do not know what the settlement will look like from 2025-26 onwards. We have tried to engage in those discussions with the UK Government, but that has proven very difficult. We have raised the issue on numerous occasions with the various secretaries of state and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the basis that there had been a commitment to discuss the intra-UK allocations of funding support. As yet, however, the offer to have those discussions has not been taken up.

I have been in touch with the new secretary of state, Steve Barclay, on a number of occasions, but we have yet to receive a response to the correspondence that we issued and in which we tried, essentially, to reset the relationship so that we can have a positive discussion about this. That discussion has still to take place.

Do you mean for the—

Our forecast spend for the programme has reduced. Initially, £20 million was allocated for the programme and we have allocated £12 million for that for the coming year as well. The funding had not been fully utilised during the past year. I do not know whether Karen Morley knows the exact figure.

Absolutely—we will make it as easy as possible. Again, that is in everybody’s best interests. We do not want it to be a bureaucratic exercise and, for the types of activities that happen through AECS, we want to make any future support as easy as possible for farmers to access. Again, it is in all our best interests to do that.

The committee is currently scrutinising the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill and, of course, we will be in close communication with the committee on that. There will be a scrutiny process for the secondary legislation that will contain the detail of what any future scheme would look like. AECS may not exist in the same form as it does now, but certainly we want to see the activities that are undertaken as part of that scheme to be more fully embedded within a future framework of support.

We have very ambitious targets, but, as I outlined, our available capital budget for new planting is not sufficient to enable us to meet the target that we set for the coming year. We had hoped to meet our target in the climate change plan of 18,000 hectares of new planting this year, but our current capital budget will not enable us to do that.

The reduction in the marine directorate’s budget is, in part, due to the fact that we are not proceeding with the proposal for HPMAs. We have best utilised that funding in taking forward our priorities for marine protection as a whole. My colleague Màiri McAllan led on the HPMA policy and leads on the marine environment.

Our priority remains to deliver the fisheries management measures for the marine protected area network and the priority marine features. That, in and of itself, is no small exercise. We are looking to implement measures at about 160 different sites, so there will need to be extensive stakeholder consultation as part of that process. Our funding for the marine environment is now being prioritised on ensuring that we deliver on those measures and the previous commitments that we have made.

I do not know whether David Signorini wants to add to that.