Chamber and committees

I have made commitments about that. As I said in connection with the agriculture bill, I cannot give a definitive timescale as to when any legislation will be introduced.

It is important to highlight the work that is already under way. I think that this issue is really important and I want to assure the committee that I hear what you are saying. We have increased the Crofting Commission’s budget and have been working with the commission to see how we can start to address some of the issues that it is up against, which I hope will start to improve things.

We re-established the crofting bill group last year. It has met 10 times so far, more meetings are planned and all the relevant stakeholders are being considered. The bill group has considered some of the issues that were raised by the previous rural committee in its report on crofting. In his contribution to the agriculture policy debate last week, Alasdair Allan raised something that I did not have an opportunity to touch on in my summing up, which is that there has been a degree of consensus on tackling some of the issues.

Good progress is being made. I assure you that work is progressing well and that it is still our intention to introduce crofting reform. I will be happy to keep the committee updated.

Some of those issues are being picked up and discussed by the crofting bill group. We are keen to make progress if there are areas where we can do so without requiring legislation. I appreciate the points that you have raised today and during last week’s debate, and I assure you that those points are very much in the minds of members of the bill group as they do that work.

I can give a very quick response in response to that last point. I wrote to the committee—I think that that was in January—with a broad outline for the timetables for when we would introduce the good food nation plan and the commission. We are still working to those timescales; nothing has changed and nothing has slipped in relation to that. We hope that we will be looking to consult on a draft good food nation plan over the coming months.

Thank you, convener. I am happy to appear before the committee to discuss legislation that will introduce changes to the fees structure of the Animal and Plant Health Agency to uplift the fees for some statutory services that are delivered by that organisation on behalf of Scottish ministers and to deliver the Government policy of full cost recovery for those specified schemes.

The schemes covered by the instrument that the committee is considering cover animal by-products, salmonella control programmes, artificial breeding controls, checks on live animals at border control posts and the poultry health scheme for work carried out to allow producers to trade domestically and/or internationally.

Charges for those services also apply across the English and Welsh Administrations. The Welsh Government and the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs also have full cost recovery policies and also intend to introduce legislation to uplift fees for those statutory services.

The Animal Health (Miscellaneous Fees) (Amendment and Revocation) (Scotland) Order 2023 amends the Poultry Compartments (Fees) (Scotland) Order 2010 by revoking provisions that currently allow value added tax to be added to fees charged. His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has indicated that statutory fees that can be performed only by the Animal and Plant Health Agency are out of scope for VAT and that no VAT is therefore due upon them.

No business and regulatory impact assessment has been prepared on this occasion, because the Animal and Plant Health Agency has already carried out engagement with the affected sectors to understand the impact of the planned changes to fees. The affected industry sectors are fully aware that the APHA has been moving to full cost recovery for most such charges and that no significant impact on business is anticipated.

I end my comments there and I am happy to answer questions from the committee.

I am sure that the team could give more information in relation to the consultation that they have to undertake. We provide that guidance to public bodies, because they are the ones who are legally obligated to undertake those assessments. I do not know whether you want any more information on that.

Yes. The projects that are funded through the islands programme have been developed with communities and try to identify and address their needs. The funding for the projects that I announced last week was welcome. I was in Shetland, announcing three projects there that were awarded funding.

I thank the committee for the scrutiny and work that it undertook on the islands programme, because that fed into the process and how we worked the funding allocation and models that we used this year. That feedback was really helpful, and we made improvements to the programme as a result of that work.

I am speaking from the example that I highlighted earlier, although the team might want to come in with more examples. We very much use them in the development of policies and strategies. I have highlighted one particular example where an assessment was made and we made a change.

That is very much how I view them. In the same way, we have to undertake business and regulatory impact assessments when we are looking at other policies. In both cases, we have to consider all the information and show how it has been factored in to the decision making.

I do not know whether Francesco Sindico or anyone else from the team wants to add any information to what I have said.

Yes, that is correct. The 2018 act sets out that we can add to or amend that list by regulations.

A key part of the project is ensuring replicability across other islands. Although only six islands are part of the project, we want to ensure that we roll out learning from across Scotland, as well as international learning.

I am sure that officials will correct me if I am wrong about this or will come in with more information, but there is an example in the Western Isles of an island skills and employment repopulation pilot that is being taken forward with £250,000 of funding as a result of some of that engagement. I do not know whether Nicola Crook or Cameron Anson would like to come in on that.