Chamber and committees

You will be pleased to hear that this is my final question. In your introduction, you touched on the fact that the natural environment bill might include policies that would influence the creation of another national park. I presume that that is because there is no time for the National Parks (Scotland) Act 2000 to be amended. What additional policies do you see the natural environment bill containing that would pertain to national parks?

That concludes our questions for today. I thank the cabinet secretary, the minister and their officials for attending. We move into private session.

Our next item of business is an evidence session on the Scottish Government’s policy priorities and its programme for government commitments that are relevant to the committee’s remit.

I welcome to the meeting Mairi Gougeon, the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands, and Jim Fairlie, the Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity. Joining us from the Scottish Government are George Burgess, the director of agriculture and rural economy; Donald Henderson, the deputy director of the nature division; Malcolm Pentland, the deputy director and lead for marine economy and communities; and Iain Wallace, the head of the operations portfolio at the marine directorate.

We have about two hours for discussion. Before we begin that, I ask the cabinet secretary to make a brief opening statement.

Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. We have questions about various themes that touch on the priorities that you have mentioned.

Will you give us an idea of the timing of the crofting bill, when we are likely to see the good food nation plan and when the natural environment bill will be introduced, to give us an indication of what our work programme might look like?

We move to a question from Rhoda Grant.

We will move on to discuss agricultural support reform, starting with a question from Rachael Hamilton.

We are not going to dwell on the budget now, because we will deal with that in future evidence sessions. You said that farmers are still getting their payments and that those have not been cut. However, the Bew review suggested that farmers should be getting an additional £61 million—it said, in effect, that that was the shortfall. Where in the agriculture portfolio is that £61 million not being spent, and where is that having an impact on progress towards your goals?

Emma Harper will ask questions on our next theme, which is forestry.

My understanding is that the draft management plans need to be laid by 7 October and the whole process needs to be completed by the end of the year. Given what you have said, it sounds unlikely that that will happen. Are you going to request that the joint fisheries statement be changed and the date pushed back to reflect that?

Okay. Thank you.