Chamber and committees

On the point about Ukrainian refugees, does JustRight get involved in some of those cases? Are cases such as that of Olga Karpova becoming more prevalent?

What would you like to happen to address that issue? Obviously, none of you can do anything about the housing stock in Scotland, but would you like a relaunch of the supersponsor scheme for this group of people? Graham O’Neill has addressed other areas, but I am asking specifically about that.

I am sorry—I had issues with the traffic earlier. I have some questions on the Ukraine supersponsor scheme. It might work to ask them as part of the discussion on the new Scots strategy.

Thank you, convener, and welcome to your role.

My first question is about what new issues need to be delivered in the new Scots strategy. I was slightly concerned when I heard, on “Good Morning Scotland” a couple of weeks ago, Olga Karpova say that she was asked to leave her flat. Her family had been settled through the supersponsor scheme. She was offered hotel accommodation in Dumfries and Galloway, but it meant that her family would have to start over again with work and education.

From your experience, what more could local authorities do, considering that the supersponsor scheme has been paused, particularly for those who are stuck in temporary accommodation or cannot imagine starting their life over again? After they have already flown a war-torn country, they are then having to start again in a new region of Scotland.

Is the £1.6 million that has been allocated to the new Scots strategy enough to deal with some of the issues that you would like it to address?

I have just one more quick question for Morgan Vaughan. Given your role as a farm manager supporting RSPB Scotland, do you agree that direct payments should remain?

Okay. I want to open up the question to the rest of the panel, because there are certain people who believe that the agri bill is the panacea, and I am concerned that we are putting all our eggs in one basket and that everyone is looking to farmers for the solution—or, indeed, blaming them for the situation. There are many other things that should be looked at alongside this in a—to use that dreadful word—holistic manner. I wonder whether Tim Benton has an opinion on that.

I want to ask about the relationship between ecosystem resilience and food security. I would like to concentrate on legislation that is not connected to the agriculture bill that could have an impact on ensuring that we can grow more food locally or improve the efficiency and productivity of livestock production.

Earlier, I gave the example of rainfall and flooding. This question is for David Harley. The Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009 focuses on flood protection, but it does not look at the flow of rivers or the maintenance of soil quality and quantity. In order to help farmers to achieve all the things that we expect them to achieve in the context of the agriculture bill, should we not also be looking at other legislation alongside the bill, such as the 2009 act?

Last year, in Fife and the Borders, the abstraction licences were suspended, which had a direct impact on broccoli and soft fruit growing. Farmers were up in arms about that. One action that SEPA is taking is to ensure that there is more riparian tree planting to provide more soil stability on river banks—that is mentioned in one of your reports, so it is a bit confusing when you say that you are not the authority but you allow others to work and spend that money.

My point is similar to that of Roger Crofts from NatureScot, who has said that, instead of SEPA putting down concrete and spending £1 billion on flood risk management, we should be working with farmers and using a catchment management approach to ensure that farmers and communities get the benefits. We need to ensure that the river flow helps farmers as well as communities, rather than expend all that energy on concrete and contractors when that does not necessarily benefit local communities.

It does, but the point that I am trying to make is that, with regard to the agriculture bill, the issue is connectivity between the very many stakeholders, not just farmers. We have heard a lot about removing livestock, but I, too, could debate this issue for pretty much the rest of the day, setting out the benefits of livestock for biodiversity, soil stability and habitat restoration. However, this is about every single person—all stakeholders—having an interest in ensuring that we have good food security and all the rest of it and about improving farmers’ ability to do their jobs well. In the future, we might need to bring these elements together instead of just looking at them in isolation.

We have heard, for example, about the need for more investment in slurry storage. Farmers who have come before this committee have told us that they are putting their hands in their own pockets to do things and make improvements in animal health, animal productivity and efficiency but the Government is not giving them enough support to carry out measures or to meet the targets that the Government expects them to meet. Does anyone else want to come in on that?