Chamber and committees

Okay. The only thing that I will say in relation to there being no business and regulatory impact assessment because the Government says that there will be no “significant, effects on ... business” is that, if a dairy business or the owner of a game processing plant were here, they would probably say something different. I just want to put that on the record.

Good morning, cabinet secretary. Did you watch the round table that we had on fisheries a couple of weeks ago?

That is really not the picture that was painted. Professor Michel Kaiser, from the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland, said that, in the past,

“everybody would have liked to have worked in the marine lab in Aberdeen”,

but that

“To be ... frank, it is not somewhere that you would want to work these days, because, over three decades, it has been systematically hollowed out to a shell of what it was formerly.”—[Official Report, Rural Affairs and Islands Committee, 4 September 2024; c 6.]

Dr Robin Cook said that

“It is of real concern that we no longer have a marine institute in Scotland with the capacity to deliver for the future.”—[Official Report, Rural Affairs and Islands Committee, 4 September 2024; c 10.]

Those are just a couple of the comments, but, as you are well aware, cabinet secretary, the general trend is that, since 2009, the number of publications that have been produced in Scotland has declined dramatically compared with the output in fisheries research from countries such as Ireland, Denmark and France and, indeed, from the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science in the rest of the United Kingdom. The budget has also decreased. As Dr Robin Cook said, it will take a long time to get back to the position that we were in, pre-2009, when the science output was outstanding.

What is your response to that? What will the Scottish Government do to rectify the situation?

I will ask one more quick question. Do you believe that Marine Scotland science has the right skill set, in the number of scientists and their capacity, and the right amount of funding in order to be able to continue to ensure that we are able to keep up with the reputation of other countries such as Denmark, France, Ireland and Norway?

Okay, well, I do not have a copy of the budget for the marine directorate science, evidence, data and digital portfolio. I have only separate budgets, so I cannot make a judgment as to whether it is being funded properly.

It is £0.2 million down.

The problem is that there are further questions about the Bew review moneys.

I note that the language in table 1 on page 1 of the letter implies that ring-fenced funds and Bew review moneys are two separate matters. However, the phrasing in the rest of the letter implies that both of those are merged into the total agri budget. It remains the case that the £46 million has been removed. That letter was even more confusing than I had thought the whole scenario was originally, which is a shame.

You did not answer my question about impact. Normally, in any scenario where policy is made, a business and regulatory impact assessment is undertaken on what happens on the ground, at the grass roots and in supply chains. Have you undertaken any assessment of the impact that your current payment strategy and budget prioritisation is having on rural communities?

Yes.

So you are saying that the two things are not connected. What about the soil testing scheme, for example, which had very low uptake six months ago? Has that improved? Uptake was very low when we were scrutinising the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill.

I just want to push this. Are you saying that the greening schemes—shall I call them that?—and other schemes that will possibly become conditional on receiving future payments are all being taken up and that the funding allocated to them has been used?