Chamber and committees

When the Bew review was undertaken, there was a commitment in it that there would be further discussion about future allocations and how they would work. We have continued to pursue that with the UK Government to try to discuss what future funding will look like. However, despite pressing for them, those discussions have never taken place.

I do not know whether George Burgess has anything to add to that.

I clarify that devolved Administration ministers were not invited to the event in Downing Street. George Burgess was invited to attend, so there was official representation there. The invitation came in at very short notice—I think that there was around a week’s notice beforehand. We raised our involvement in that at the interministerial group, given the devolved nature of what was being discussed, and the other devolved Administrations have raised that issue as well.

I do not have a definitive timeline yet, but I will continue discussions with the Deputy First Minister about when that money will be returned to the portfolio.

I also want to be absolutely clear that that money is ring fenced. It must come back to the portfolio and cannot be spent in other areas. It will be returned to the portfolio, but the detail of the timeline is still to be determined.

As George Burgess outlined, it helps us. The most adequate way to describe it is to say that it is almost like making a loan back to the centre that must be returned in future years.

It was offered as a saving; it was not spent in another area. That is what George Burgess is trying to make clear.

Essentially, we are asking for our fair share of funding. We already face a shortfall in what we were promised on the back of Brexit—we were promised that agriculture funding would be replaced in full, which it has not been. We have a £93 million shortfall, so we expect at least that, if not more.

I have outlined that. Going forward, we need to have clarity and certainty about what funding will look like, because we cannot plan for budgets beyond 2025 or even get an overall figure, which constrains what we can do. Initially, we want clarity, but the most important thing is having the first conversation, which is not happening.

Yes.

It is not hypocritical at all. I think that you are confusing points that are not remotely related.

I do not think that those are stupid questions at all. They are the issues that we are grappling with, because we absolutely want to see the right trees in the right places. That is about how we can have the right balance between commercial tree planting—to support the timber industry in Scotland—and native tree planting.

It is too early for me to talk about what changes might be made to the scheme, given that the consultation closed only within the past couple of weeks. I think that we had more than 200 responses to the consultation and we will need to analyse them before setting out what changes could be made. However, it is really about trying to identify what the barriers are at the moment and how we can support the better integration of trees on farms.