Chamber and committees

Can I please have confirmation that you have 40 days before the deadline of 1 January to get this done? If so, that does not mean that the committee needs to pass the regulations today.

You are making up the term “cliff edge”. It is not a cliff edge.

Do ARIOB members represent themselves as individuals, or do they represent their organisations?

A number of stakeholders have made a really good point about access to the schemes. For some farmers who have changed and developed things, fixing the date sooner—and giving them confidence, as the convener talked about—would allow them to get access to the funding that they are entitled to. Currently, no impact study has been done on whether people who have changed their businesses can access SRDP schemes. That is really important.

You seem dogmatic about this, minister, but we have done this before. We did it with the Clyde cod box, when the Government twice re-laid an SSI. It is not a big deal, and it does not mean that we are criticising the Government; it just means that we are doing our job properly and that we have looked carefully at the issue and considered the stakeholders’ views. We are asking you very kindly to reconsider and bring the SSI back, and not to be stuck in the mud about it. We could consider the SSI in mid-November, and it would still be approved with no impact on the delivery of payments. I am asking you very nicely, minister.

From what I have heard, I am still not convinced that the SSI has been brought forward with consideration. I still have severe concerns about the fact that there was no consultation and that the SSI was based on the 2018 consultation responses. Times have changed since then—we are now in 2024. As a committee, we undertook to reach out to stakeholders, which we did. In response to our call for views, we received an unprecedented number of responses in one week. What I read in those 18 responses was concerning, because the SSI does not give farmers confidence about what the Government expects of them with regard to the transition and to achieving the net zero targets.

I recommend, therefore, that we ask that the instrument be withdrawn. I know that I will probably lose the vote, but, as a responsible member of the committee, I feel that the way in which the Government has dealt with these regulations does not set a good precedent for all the other instruments that will come before the committee. It has approached the issue in an intransigent and stuck-in-the-mud way; it is not even listening to stakeholders or this committee. I do feel very regretful about this.

Okay. How has LFASS addressed declining stock numbers more widely?

I agree with you on that point, but if the conversations that you have just said that you have been having about changing these payments are on-going, why have so many stakeholders expressed concern?

The committee has written to the cabinet secretary to ask whether it can have an observer on ARIOB. Our frustration is that we are in the dark and cannot understand what feedback you are getting from ARIOB. A lot of the criticism about the SSI is about the way in which it has been laid without a new consultation, as well as this 2009 payment. Things have culminated in committee members becoming frustrated, too. It would be helpful if we understood what feedback the cabinet secretary was getting.

You have been charged with coming before us today to deliver this. You have been arguing that ARIOB is part of the co-development and engagement process, but you are not responsible for anything to do with it, so you can see our frustration.

It is a short supplementary.

The rural support scheme needs to be delivered from 1 January. There is absolutely no cliff edge here; we have an opportunity to scrutinise these regulations properly. Eighteen people have come to the committee with their views on this. There is no cliff edge, minister—you are making it up.

There is no cliff edge. There is an opportunity for a redrafted SSI to be brought to the committee in November that would address the concerns of the stakeholders who have written to the committee over the past week in response to our call for views.