Chamber and committees

The Native Woodland Survey of Scotland is determining the precise area and status of native woodlands in Scotland for the first time, and will provide an accurate baseline for future monitoring. It does not include other types of woodlands, so cannot be used to determine overall woodland area. The total woodland area of Scotland is being assessed as part of the GB-wide National Forest Inventory, and we expect results to be published in spring 2011. These will show changes in woodland area compared to previous inventory information.

ConFor has expressed its concerns to the Scottish Government on behalf of the forestry sector regarding woodland creation grant aided under the Scottish Rural Development Plan.

A breakdown of these figures is not readily available at present.

Following discussions with the forestry sector this autumn, Forestry Commission Scotland will be piloting the collection of woodland removal data in the period 2000-10 within one of its five conservancies. The focus will be on wind farms and bog restoration, as these are known to be the primary causes of woodland removal this decade.

The pilot exercise will also assess broader trends in woodland removal by analysing forest plans approved in the period 2000-10, calculating areas to be felled and areas to be restocked in each plan period.

Providing the pilot can demonstrate that such information collection would not be disproportionately expensive in terms of cost or time, the methodology will then be rolled out to the remaining four conservancies in Scotland. It is anticipated that data from this project will be available by summer 2011.

The first eight local authority summary reports* were published in May 2010. Another five** were published in October 2010. The remaining local authority summary reports will be published in batches each spring and autumn through to spring 2013.

The national report is scheduled for publication by summer 2013.

A map viewer, through which the data used to prepare the summaries can be accessed, is available on the Forestry Commission website at www.forestry.gov.uk/nwss.

Notes:

*Aberdeen, City of Edinburgh, Dundee, East Ayrshire, East Renfrewshire, Glasgow, North Ayrshire and South Ayrshire.

**Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, East Dunbartonshire, Midlothian, Renfrewshire and West Dunbartonshire.

There are no plans to change the definition of a woodland area.

The optimum deployment of the ferry fleet available to Scottish Ministers is an important part of effective delivery of ferry services.

We have no plans to transfer vessels between the two ferry networks.

The member has raised the matter of land eligibility for these schemes in previous questions and in correspondence with me. I very much regret, therefore, that I must again remind him that the guidance issued was not new and had been represented to farmers and stakeholders well in advance of the May submission date for the single application forms. What constituted eligibility for these schemes, therefore, before the issue of the guidance and what constituted eligibility afterwards is the same.

The Scottish Government''s publicity about eligibility, the issue of the notes for guidance and the reminder of the provisions of EU legislation that allowed farmers to correct their claims, together, meant that farmers were given the opportunity to safeguard subsidies that are such a necessary part of their business viability. I was pleased that in excess of 2,000 businesses took this opportunity. I regret that I am not able to provide separate figures for farmers and crofters.

The Scottish Government''s Notes for Guidance on the Single Farm Payment Scheme are a bold initiative to explain what constitutes eligible / ineligible land for the purposes of claiming support. They are unique amongst the notes issued by all UK agriculture departments in the explanation of problems using photographs to illustrate the issue of eligible land for subsidy purposes. The Rural Payments and Inspections Directorate''s (SGRPID) original plan was to have the notes issued earlier but problems were encountered in achieving a satisfactory resolution of the illustrations. The notes were issued close to the deadline for application forms but SGRPID took additional steps to clarify that farmers could correct their land declarations at any time. A significant number of farmers took the opportunity to do that and avoid possible penalties. In this way, we ensured no farmers were disadvantaged by the later delivery of these notes. For the future, lessons have been learned about starting the production process at an earlier stage.

The Scottish Government is committed both to helping farmers and crofters maximise their share of Common Agricultural Policy funds and to avoid the loss of support through penalties levied for non-compliance with regulatory requirements that were avoidable. Where funding is claimed through the over declaration of eligible land, no matter how unwitting the claimant''s actions, the Scottish Government must implement the scheme of penalties set by the EC under European legislation, as it is required to do by the Scotland Act.