 Felly, hi fawr wrth gwrs. Felly, rydw i'n gweithio'r ffawr o'r 18 oes i'r gweithio'r 2017 o'r Fawr i'r Fawr i'r Fawr i'r gweithio'r Cymru. Felly, rydw i'n gweithio'r Gweithwyr yn bwysig o'i ddweud o'i ddysgu iawn gyda'r fawr. Fe wnaeth amser o'r gweithio'r gweithwyr yn ddigonol. Felly, rydw i'n gweithio'r gweithwyr yn ddigonol. Sally Cox, the chair of the fourth crossing bridge constructors and Michael Martin, the project director. Welcome. We look forward to receiving an update, and Cabinet Secretary, would you like to make a brief opening statement to bring us up to date from the report that we received from David, which was dated 29 April, I believe? Okay, thank you very much, convener, and thanks for the opportunity to update the committee. I will provide a brief update, and then welcome any discussion and questions from myself or David, Michael or Sally. On March 29, I advised the committee that the Queensferry crossing is now forecast open to traffic between mid-July and the end of August, depending on weather conditions. That followed the fourth crossing bridge contractors advising that a May 2017 opening date was no longer achievable due to the effects of the weather, particularly wind, beyond that, which was foreseen by them in June 2016. At that time, all members agreed that the safety and quality of the construction work should be the guiding principles in determining the programme to completion. So, both I and Transport Scotland also would want to continue to stress to FCBC that the continued focus on maintaining health and safety as our top priority, which I know is at the forefront of everything that they do. Since my last appearance at this committee on 29 March and since the last written update, as you mentioned, convener, on 28 April, I am pleased to update you today on the significant progress that has continued on the north approach roads and the Queensferry crossing. I went to the site on May 19 to see for myself the progress that has been made in the favourable weather conditions on that day. In fact, there was not a breath of wind at the top of the towers, which I am told is extremely unusual, but I was, at that time, hugely impressed by the progress that has been made across all the key activities on the project. I am pleased to inform the committee that all the tower cranes, as you may well be aware, have now been completely removed. You will recall that that activity was significantly affected from the start of the year due to the fewer than expected weather windows required to complete their removal. The upper deck tower falsework removal has also been completed, as FCBC have taken advantage of the available weather windows during April and May. All the expansion joints have now been installed and the final deck concrete pores on the south approach viaduct have been completed. The installation of wind barriers is also nearing completion across the full length of the Queensferry crossing. A very important design feature will deliver a significant benefit to the travelling public if you think about the times when the existing fourth road bridge has to be closed to high-sided vehicles during high winds. The waterproofing and road surfing is continuing on the deck of the Queensferry crossing as planned, and FCBC continue to progress the finishing works relating to the stay cables, such as the guidepipes, dampers, deviators and tension rings. On the south side, the N90 south side approach road and the A90 public transport link are both ready for tie-in and use when required. On the north side, ferry toll junction construction is nearing completion and the ferry toll park and ride construction is complete with the burst circulatory area now open. As I confirmed to the committee on March 29, the overall project costs the taxpayer remains within the range of £1.325 billion to £1.35 billion, securing the quarter of a billion pounds of savings released since the construction started. Community relations and public engagement continue to be hugely positive, and the project continues to attract a great deal of interest from a variety of stakeholders, including the general public, schools, colleges, universities, as well as industry, international visitors and the media. The successful schools programme has attracted well over 20,000 school pupils from throughout Scotland in just four academic years, and the project exhibition at the dedicated contact and education centre has attracted well over 20,000 visitors. The project team also continued to regularly provide presentations that have been attended by over 30,000 people. All interested in hearing more about the project and the latest in the construction of the crossing. The overall outreach and education programme is now attracted well over 70,000 individuals across all activities. Those activities will continue into the future and will ensure that there is a lasting educational legacy from the project. Inspiring, we hope, future generations to be inspired by the innovations of what is a world-class project and learning more about the science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics related to the project. As you can imagine, the interest in the public has also increased as construction has progressed and now the public are increasingly interested in how they can be part of celebrations to commemorate the completion and opening of this iconic structure. The project team has been considering the full range of potential options available to ensure that the public have the opportunity to appropriately celebrate the completion and the opening of this world-class bridge. FCBC will provide Transport Scotland with an update on their programme to open the Queensferry crossing to traffic in the coming weeks. Following that, announcements will be made regarding the opening celebrations planned for the Queensferry crossing. It remains on schedule, convener, to open to traffic between mid-July and the end of August 2017. As I have said before, fourth crossing bridge constructors continue to strive for the earliest possible opening date to traffic. I can also assure the committee that everyone involved in the project remains fully focused on completing the project to the high quality achieved so far and just as importantly as safely as possible. As Michael Martin mentioned to me recently, health and safety have no finishing line. Given that, convener, I am happy to try to answer any questions that you may have for me, David, Michael or Sally. I think that the first question is going to come from John Mason. Thanks, convener, and thanks very much, cabinet secretary, for your update. We are talking about the opening being between six weeks, roughly, and 12 weeks ahead from now. Can we be any more specific on that? No. I think that we have said—there was a reason, as I said, the last time at the committee for that range being given rather on a specific date. I think that we have learned that that is the best way to try and present to the public the expected opening time for that. We do have that window of six weeks between mid-July and the end of August. We will try, as I have just said, to open it as early as possible, but there are still enough variables in particular on the weather. For example, to most of us, yesterday was a very good day, but the rain that happened during the course of the day meant that the waterproofing that had been done could not then be overlaid with blacktop because of that. There are still too many variables for us to be more specific. We expect to be—and we are going to have to be—specific in the next few weeks about that, and we will do that, but until we have real confidence about the actual opening date, we do not want to go public with that. Have there been other weather issues over the last few weeks since the last update? From my point of view, the reports that I have—I get regular updates from the team—is that, yes, there are still issues, but if you think back to the cranes, which were the big issue last time that I came to the committee, once it had been taken down below a certain level, it was possible to work in higher wind conditions, and it is at the top. On the plus side, just because of the lengthening days, that has allowed more of a window for work to be done, but there has still continued to be, even on what appeared to be some quite benign days, especially later on in the day, issues with wind and sometimes issues with rain, all of which is pretty standard for this kind of project, although it has taken place in the middle of the fourth estuary, which adds to it. Yes, there are continuing problems, probably nothing beyond that, which we would expect in terms of the nature of the weather conditions, but they are still there. You said that you would get regular updates. How does it work? Can the contractors tell the management team what every week or so, and then they update you every week? David is there the whole time. He is visiting the project the whole time and talks with Michael regularly. I get from David a weekly update. He provides updates, as you know, to this committee as well, but I would be talking to David or Michelle Rennie, who is also here with us today, from Transport Scotland, sometimes two, three times a week, sometimes less than that, but we certainly get the regular updates, regardless of how often I talk to them. You can imagine the pace is quickening a bit towards the end of the project now. The public interest is substantially increasing, so I am asked more and more questions about it—very nice questions, just like this committee. With that level of interest, even if it was not the case that I wanted to be kept up today, I would have to refer to them regularly. There is a regular dialogue going on. All going well, we are not expecting any weather to be disruptive in the next six weeks or so? We are expecting weather to be disruptive, to be honest, but not beyond what we would have expected. If we had a prolonged period of very high winds, that would give us issues similarly with a very wet period, especially now that we are into the surface processes, there are, and I do not pretend to know at all, a number of different elements of the surface that have to be taken into account, and they are weather-dependent. However, that was all pretty much anticipated, but whether there is still something that can present us with challenges, no doubt about that. I will add a little to that, in terms of the weather. Certainly in April and May, particularly, we have been fortunate that it has been very dry, and that has been commented on in the press. That has helped us in terms of the water proofing and surfacing. I think that about 20 per cent of the average rainfall has fallen in Edinburgh over that period. There is always a risk that that average is going to get back to where it should be, so obviously we have a relatively short period to go, as you said, between six and 13 weeks, so should suddenly that average swing back to where it would be in the long term, that obviously could have an impact on the water proofing and the surfacing. So we have allowed for that, and that is why we are still sticking to the window. That is relevant to maximising the opportunities, given that we are now operating much longer daylight hours. Has there been any change in the shift of the working patterns, for example, as we know, when is often to pick up in the afternoon, so have people been starting earlier at, say, 6am to take advantage of the daylight hours? I will let David come back now, but yes, that is the case. In fact, on one of the activities, the tension rings, which is none at great height, as you can imagine. Those not only are continuing through the daylight hours but actually right through the night, but there has been full advantage taken of the longer daylight hours, if you want to comment on that. That is exactly right. I think that FCBC has been very proactive in looking at just what is the right time of day to work. Once the cranes were removed, that took away one significant area where we had big exclusion zones, where that was the only activity that could happen. Once the cranes have been removed, that opened up more areas that could be worked on simultaneously. The point with the wind is that what we have seen typically on the fourth is that you can get it absolutely flat calm in the morning. In the afternoon, the wind picks up. It is almost like opening a door at about 11 o'clock in the morning. The wind will then blow quite hard, say 30 to 35 miles an hour, until around 9 o'clock in the evening, and it is almost like closing the door again. What has happened is that the key activities that are wind-dependent, such as fitting the tension rings working on the tops of the cables, have been put into effect under a backshift, so that starts late in the evening. With the longer daylight hours, it means that it can work effectively through that period. There has been a lot of flexibility built into maximising the use of the daylight hours and the pattern of the wind during the day. The next question is from Peter. Yes, thanks. Good morning, folks. Are FCBCs subject to any penalty for missing the contractual opening date, and if so, what might that be? I will let David in. Much of that is commercially confidential, but I will let David in. I would not mention penalties, because penalties are something that we would not typically put in a contract. There are liquidated damages, which is how we usually describe things that are put into a contract. If the project should overrun the agreed contractual date, there is a loss of benefit, effectively, in not having the project delivered. You assess what those liquidated damages are, and they have to be put into the contract. Also, within any contract, there are avenues for the contractor to apply for an extension of time if events have occurred which they are not liable for. It is a two-way street. Yes, there are potentially liquidated damages if contractual date is not met, but there are also avenues for the contractor to apply for an extension of time if events have occurred which would entitle them to an extension of time. The contact has mechanisms to allow for both those things. Mr Brown has said correctly that we are on a live contract. There are discussions going on in the subject, and we are not at the point where we have passed the contractual date yet. We are close to it, but we have not passed it yet. However, yes, there are mechanisms for it. Should that prove necessary? Can I ask if there is also a mechanism for the contractors to recoup extra costs that might be involved in running past the time as well? You still have hundreds of staff on site, and if the job had been done, they would have obviously been finished or contracts would have been finished. You would not be paying them. That is true, but the way that contracts are set up is that there are some aspects that are allowed to have an extension of time, some allow an extension of time and also cost. It depends on which activities it is that are affected. However, as I have reassured the committee before, nothing has come up so far that would entitle the contractor to claim extra costs for any overrun that will happen. That is why we are still confident of maintaining the original budget that we have at the moment. Yes, there may be an element of time, but we are confident that there will be no element of cost that we attach to that. I think that it is worth adding that the contractor is currently bearing the cost. I will bear the cost to the tune of around £1 million a day, I think, in terms of the additional costs that have been incurred. Obviously, it is in the interests of the contractor, or it will be if they go past the contract completion date, which is what we expect for them to bear that cost. Everyone is incentive there for the contractor to get this finished as quickly as possible. Can I just come back on liquidated damages? First of all, it would be extremely difficult to prove, because there is a crossing that is open and operational already. Proving a loss would be virtually impossible. First of all, do you accept that as a premise? As a premise, yes, but also when you negotiate any contract, one of the elements in negotiating the contract is what the liquidated damages would be. It is important that when you enter into a contract, you have a level of liquidated damages that the parties sign on to. As part of the original competitive dialogue that we had when we were negotiating the contract itself, the level of liquidated damages was one of the factors that was agreed as part of the contract negotiations. There were several things that were negotiated similarly. There was a level of bonding for the contract, there was the level of liquidated damages and there was also the whole payment schedule. All of those were discussed in great detail and decided in advance of awarding the contract. Those discussions were had in advance of the contract and should not then come into effect post contract. I totally accept that. I am sure that people understand that liquidated damages will be in some ways better to keep them low on the basis that they will get a better overall price for the contract. Have you given the contractor any extensions to time? I think that there are discussions going on in that subject at the moment. Obviously, it is a live contract, so I would rather not comment on that at the moment. At the moment, there are discussions going on but no extensions of time have been given as at today's date. As I said, it is a live contract. Discussions are on going, so I cannot answer that question. I cannot comment on that. I understand perfectly the issue of commercial confidence and it is a live contract. I bear in mind that we know what the price of the contract is. It is published. When will the taxpayer know when, in other words, will it be published if there is any money coming back to the taxpayer as a result of the contract? I do not want to know now, but when will we know? When will there be any further money coming back to the taxpayer because, obviously, a significant amount has already come back? Discussions are the way in which we have a very good dialogue going on. We have a very good relationship between the client and the contractor. Those discussions are actually taking place. We had a session yesterday, in fact, talking about this and trying to establish a timescale for exactly what that should be. In terms of finishing the physical construction process, that is one thing, but in finishing the commercial discussions, that is equally important because it is important for the contractor to know exactly what they are going to pay out. As you say, it is important for the taxpayer as well to be able to draw a line under the contract and not have dragged out for months and months and months. My personal intention is that we will have that established very shortly after we actually open to traffic. The two will be linked closely together. We will not have long to wait in that. No, we are not expecting to drag out for months because either there is not a great deal to talk about and, B, there is a good commercial relationship between us. I presume that we are not including, in the remarks just made, the period of warranty where there is a period—I cannot remember what it is—that the contractors retain liabilities in its number of years. Therefore, the close down of the final accounting really can only be after the warranty period. That is true, but there is a five-year defects liability period attached to the project, but in terms of the final account settlement, that will allow for an element of potential expenditure over that five-year period as well, because the budget that we have always established has been for the full project, from the day it first started with the land acquisition and so on, right through to the end of the five-year defects liability period. So any commercial settlement that we reach will include allowances for anything that may have to happen in that five-year period. We also have a retention bond from the contractor that is in place throughout that period as well. It would be fair to say that both parties could find themselves having to commit to payments under the terms of the warranty, depending on where the liability for whatever the defect is lies. That is possible. We have heard before that there is a high level of community engagement with local businesses and residents. Have there been any local concerns raised since we last spoke to you? There have none that have been raised with me and sometimes will be raised at level of the community and with the contractors through the public engagement processes that we have established. I think that there was one issue in relation to taxes, but there has been none raised with me, but perhaps David could mention if there is any others that he is aware of. Sure. There is only the community forums that we have established. You will remember that we mentioned that the two forums have been combined in the autumn of last year, because there has been relatively little to talk about. There is a forum due to take place tonight. In advance of that, the community groups involved have not presented any issues in advance that they wanted us to consider, which I think is very positive. At the last community forum back in February, the focus was very much on switching to—they were very appreciative of how the interaction had worked throughout the construction period, and they were being able to think to—once we are gone, as it were—how does that continue in the area? We have been right with them. We have been there all the time. They have known who to contact. We have the hotline. We have the contact and education centre. Is that going to continue? How does that transition into the future once it hands over to the operating company? It is not so much an issue of immediate concerns. How does that move forward in the future and maintain that high level of the bar that we have set? Have there been any discussions or are there any plans on how that engagement might continue? Is the forum going to be still in place or are you going to do it in another way? What is going to happen is that we have also established a fourth bridges forum in parallel, and that deals with the railway bridge, the fourth road bridge, and that will be led by the fourth bridges operating company. What we have done is that they have been coming to our community forums to start that transition process into the fourth bridges forum. The guardianship will move from the project team to the fourth bridges operating company, just exactly as the operation of maintenance of the bridge moves to them as well. It is appropriate that that is the right place for the contact to sit. There has been a good engagement there and I think that there will be a good transfer of both knowledge and information through to that group going forward. We also have the contact and education centre, which will remain there. That anticipates the continuing high level of interest. If we think again that we have three different bridges from three different centuries, each of them pretty unique in their own rights, and having world heritage status, there is going to be a lot of interest. We will anticipate that. In addition to the general public interest that can be fed through the contact and education centre, we are also updating the engaging with communities booklet that is setting out the various forms of communication that we expect to happen after the opening. That includes contact details, meetings, messaging, website details, so that bridge users, local communities and the general public are provided with the appropriate communication information channels. The question is well put, because we do expect to have probably even the heightened interest on that, which we have had so far. The public are very interested in the project. Have there been any discussions with Visit Scotland about promotion as a tourist destination? That was part of the discussions that we had in the build-up to the application for the world heritage status. I took that into account at the likely level of public interest. The unique nature and world-renowned nature of the railway bridge, plus the bridge that we are currently building, is unique in the world. It is the biggest of its type in the world. That was part of it. The world heritage status itself is a huge tourist store. People will go to where they know to be world heritage sites, so that was part of that discussion at that time, and it will continue to be part of that discussion. Just before we leave that, maybe if I could ask David, the old admiralty building that is currently being used as offices, I believe, by some of the contractors, could you just remind the committee what is going to happen to that building? Certainly, he is referring to Admiral's house, which is very close to the north abutment of the bridge. At the moment, that is owned by the Scottish Government, and that was taken into the Government ownership back in the mid-1990s, when the previous project was thought to happen. In the intervening period, it was actually leased out to a company. The intention is that once the construction work is finished, which is currently being used as a site office, we will then clean it up and renovate it ready to put back on the market again. Whether we put it back on the market to sell it or to establish a lease again, we have not yet decided. With the proximity to the bridge, it is possible that we might want to lease it rather than sell it, so that we actually keep control of the building itself and the area around it. It is a listed building? It is a listed building, that is correct, yes. Certainly, when the committee went out to visit it, it was, I think, that the description would be tired and growing trees from the gutters, which is perhaps not the best advertisement next to a heritage site, which the cabinet secretary has mentioned. It is pretty unlikely that people will see that from the bridges where you are, because of where it is. You are interested in the properties, noted convener, but I did say to Transport Scotland at the very start that ministers would want to be involved in the decision about that. It is a pretty unique property, although it is impacted by the proximity of the road, which is right there now. It was previously used for corporate hospitality by somebody in Central Scotland. We will look to that when the decision is ready, and I think that they are probably right not to concentrate on cleaning the gutters there whilst they get on with the bridge, but we are aware of that. Also, on the other side of the river, the Enscharley house, as well, is another very important building, so we have those very much in mind. It would be sad to see a historic building ignored in the process. I think that the next question is from Roder. When do you expect the public transport strategy to be complete, and how will that look different from what is available in public transport at the moment? As you know, the existing bridge will be reserved for public transport. We are still looking at the actual practicalities of how that works, but it is likely to be the case that, for the initial period, all traffic will have to use the new bridge and then a public transport reverts back under traffic management initially. You can imagine that you have a new bridge there, so people will be part of the motorway network, so the speed limit would be 70 miles an hour, but that initially will be constrained to tell people to get used to the bridge. Then it will revert back to what was established at the start and in legislation, which was the use of the existing bridge as a public transport corridor. We have had engagement with bus operators throughout the project through the public transport working group. We had a dedicated bus driver training session held in February, attended by 18 members of the local and national bus companies, the Confederation of Passenger Transport and the regional transport authorities. All bus-related features will be explained in detail with the various operating regimes that can be adopted, such as those during high wind events. I mentioned earlier on how high winds, as we all know, can affect high-sided vehicles, which would include double-decker buses on the existing structure. Those presentation materials have been provided for those present to pass on to bus drivers. Once the opening is taken place, bus services will be able to take advantage of the dedicated public transport corridor, which goes from Ferry Tull Park and Ride, right across the Forth Road bridge, and via associated public transport links south of the Forth. We also expect that that will improve journey time reliability through the corridor. We are making improvements to the park and ride at Ferry Tull. Hard shoulder bus lanes on the M90 and M9 also enable buses to bypass general traffic should congestion occur, and use of the Queensferry crossings, hard shoulders, as I mentioned, when high winds affect the Forth road bridge will give us additional capacity. We will also have bus lanes around the Ferry Tull junction. Responsibility for cross-four bus services will be a matter for the individual bus operating companies, and they will determine their own routes and timetables according to their business. We expect to see a significant improvement in journey time reliability for public transport using the crossing. I may have misheard you, but it appeared to say that initially all traffic would use the new crossing, including bus traffic. When will the old bridge be used for public transport? Is that just for Ferry Tull? It seems that that is a huge bridge for very little. The existing bridge will be used in a matter of weeks, and I have perhaps asked David to come back on that. It is still under discussion just now, but initially it will be a matter of three or four weeks, possibly, that all traffic will use a new bridge. The public transport side of it buses, taxis and so on, will use the existing bridge after that. In future years, we will carry out some repairs to the existing bridge that we have not carried out, such as the expansion joints, which are not critical for the safety, but you will know that slap, slap, slap noise that you get when you go across the existing bridge. We will work on those over the coming years, and that will be because to do that now would cause massive disruption. I do not know if David wants to give more detail on how long we expect that to last. The reason for that is that when we move the traffic on to the Queensferry crossing initially, there is the last little tie-in to do of the ramps from Ferry Tull up onto the fourth road bridge, which we cannot do until the traffic is out of the way. In order to be able to do that, it is a period of three or four weeks, which is all that we are talking about. For that period, we will put all traffic on to the Queensferry crossing. What that does is that it has two benefits. One is that I am sure that when people drive across the Queensferry crossing for the first time, they are going to want to have a good look at what they are driving across, what they see from it. Certainly, in conjunction with our traffic management working group and the police, their initial suggestion was that when we initially opened it, we should keep it under a temporary traffic management regime. We have run it perhaps at 50 miles an hour rather than 70 miles an hour just because people want to be looking at what is going on. To avoid any confusion as to who goes where, everything will go on to the Queensferry crossing. It will run at 50 miles an hour for about three to four weeks. At that point, the last time will be done on the north side. The fourth road bridge will then act as a full public transport link, as it has been described. At that point, the Queensferry crossing can become the motorway, and the road order will become live to make it a motorway. When that happens, will there be more public buses from ferry tolls? What is the difference in public transport that people will see? The feedback from the bus operators has been that the ferry toll modifications that we have made are being very beneficial. That is what is working well with the larger turning circle and the area for the buses to park. The bus companies have generally said that they want to see how the new crossing operates in terms of journey times, in terms of whether the queues are less at peak times, and they will then review that based on what they see and what the public demand is to review the whole strategy. However, they want to see just how it operates before they commit to any additional services at this point. Ultimately, that is, of course, for their choice to make. I would like to bring Richard in, because he has a few questions on public transport, if I could just bring Richard in. Yes. Good morning, cabinet secretary. Basically, you said that when the new bridge opens, everything will go over that bridge, but you also said that double-deckers, then eventually single-deckers, double-deckers will go on the old bridge. When it is high winds, what is going to happen then? I think that is the point that I was making about the hard shoulders of the new crossing. If you have a situation and I am happy to be corrected if I have not got this right, if you have a situation where high winds happen, which traditionally would have meant that high-seated vehicles such as double-deckers and large trucks cannot cross the existing fourth crossing, then the new Queensferry crossing through the hard shoulders will be able to take they will already be taking the high HDVs and so on, but they can also take high-seated vehicles like double-decker buses. That gives us that extra resilience, but the norm will be that those both double-decker and single-decker buses, once that initial three-to-forward period has passed, will use the existing bridge. To go back to the previous point, in terms of journey time reliability, you just have to think about what a bus coming out of Ferry Taw has to contend with sometimes now at peak hours. The difference will be being able to get straight across that bridge because it will be them and other public transport users are using it and them alone. A way back when the other bridge was, the fourth road bridge was open, as a teenager, I can remember it. A lot of people were walked across it, a lot of people that you know, the fourth road bridge, walked across it, a lot of people drove slowly across it, so what are you basically going to be doing to ensure and you faced criticism yesterday about signage? We will ensure that signage is up to the standard that is required so that people know and you are saying to Mr Clyde that you will not be going at 70, you can go at 50. So will signage be up to standard and we will ensure over the next couple of weeks when it is open that people know where they are going? Can I say first of all that it's going to be the case that for terms of pedestrians nothing is going to change, the only way they can cross just now is through the existing fourth road bridge and that won't change, they'll not be able to go across the New Queensferry crossing by foot. So there won't be a change for them and in terms of signage what we have in this location is a very substantial integrated traffic management system, you'll see the gantries with journey time information and all sorts of other information on them and that's on both sides of the bridge so compared to the discussion that we had yesterday which is not similar you're going to have an awful lot of information for drivers but in terms of just intuitively people are not going to have to change what they're doing if they want to walk across the bridge. In terms of driving slower I mean you currently have to obey the lower speed limit on the existing bridge what will become new after the initial period will be you'll be able to travel at 70 miles an hour over the Queensferry crossing which you can't do in terms of the new crossing and obviously the signage you're right to say we have to tell people that when they first go there that's temporary they'll be able to travel at 50 miles an hour for the reasons you've mentioned and that David's mentioned but in due course they'll be able to travel the same as elsewhere in the country on the motorway network at 70 miles an hour. I'm going to bring in John here because you had a particular question. Thank you. Good morning panel cabinet secretary there's people commute across the fourth by bicycle and a number of them have raised concerns about changes to the cycle routes serving the current fourth bridge and that's particularly the case at the ferry toll end and they've raised issues about poor signage and road surfaces and the fact that it's an indirect route. Now I appreciate that there will be temporary arrangements but what assurances can you give about the improved cycle provision on the crossings please? Well I've travelled up by bike myself and my views has been massive and even since I did it I think three or four years ago it's been massive improvements in terms of the cycle route that's there especially when you come on to the south side of it. I don't know if David wants to come back in terms of the signage of what we're doing to work with through the public transport strategy. Yes I would. Because I think one of the questions which logically follows in there is in the transition period in the four weeks I think where you've indicated things will be going on. I think John and the committee would be interested to hear what's going to happen for cyclists at that specific time. Certainly for clarity let me deal with that point first. Pedestrians and cyclists will still have full access to the fourth road bridge throughout so there will be no interruption to the pedestrian cyclist access to the fourth road bridge. I'm purely talking about road traffic for the temporary period. Now in terms of the ferry toll area particularly we're reaching the very final stage of work on the ferry toll roundabout at the moment so in the last month in particular the point that she raised has been particularly accurate because we've been putting a lot of the last surfacing into position and there's been a lot of temporary rerouting for both pedestrians and cyclists. Now I've actually walked through that area myself once a week for the past four weeks and the route has changed every time but to be fair to FCBC I've got to say that the signage that's been there has been clear and there's been a lot of signage and perhaps sometimes there's been too much signage that it's been a little over complicated but there's always been a route through sometimes it has been circuitous but what is happening is that this coming weekend we actually have closures on the ferry toll geratory which we've publicised on our website as we always do and that's going to be the final areas of road surfacing being put in place around the new ferry toll roundabout as well as the finalising of the pedestrian and cyclist routes so during June we expect to finish off the work in that area so it will come down to the permanent solution will be there with including all the pedestrian new pedestrian crossings cycle tracks signage and so on and what we're also going to do and this has been suggested just by the community it's a very good idea you'll be aware that we've issued you with our road users guide which told all the people who are driving which bridge they could use and when in parallel with that we're now going to produce a cyclist and pedestrian guide as well which will be a map that will show exactly where the routes are exactly where they can go and if you want to get from A to B which route to take if you want to go from C to D which route to take and we'll be publishing that in advance of the opening to traffic okay that's very reassuring thank you okay Mike I think you have a question yes I go to the last question I think I know we haven't got a date yet for the opening of the of the bridge obviously but when can we expect to hear your plans on marking the opening of the crossing I was really just knowing when we'll be able to hear what they are rather than for a specific date my views we should do that at the same time as we have the certainty around the opening dates I mean obviously your question implies a great deal of discussions going on up until now there's a lot of people getting in touch with transport Scotland down with the government about suggestions and ideas for the opening there's a huge amount of interest but I think that's best done when we know the opening date so I think that those two things at the same time I give the final question to John you go back to the buses if it's faster for the bus to go over the new bridge as compared to the old bridge is it compulsory for the buses to go over the old bridge or can they choose to go over the new bridge faster is I'm not sure that it will be faster even if you're able to go at 70 miles an hour if you've got a dedicated public transport route where you're not having to pass through with general traffic some point as to which one would be faster for the public transport buses no but it's early in turn there's nothing to stop a bus from going over either either bridge it can go over the Queensferry crossing if it wishes to go over the Queensferry crossing but obviously if you're running a bus service you tend to publish what the route is and therefore where the stops are either end would depend on which bridge it crosses but there's nothing within the regulations that says buses must use the fourth road bridge they can use the Queensferry crossing if they wish to if they can go on a motorway they can go over the Queensferry crossing okay that's great no bus stops on the new crossing well no i got that yes okay thanks very much thanks richard wants to come in with a very brief one and that really is the final question we built a new bridge because we had problems with old bridge and I've asked you this question before do you intend or is there any intention to the new the structure of the old bridge the cable ties etc as and when well it wasn't just because of the you're right to say that's what initiated it the decision by the scottish government to go ahead with the new bridge was because of the condensation in the cables and the prospect that we were told at the time which has transpired not to be true that by 2017 hgvs wouldn't be able to use the existing bridge that's not happened because some of the works that have been carried out in the cables have found out that it's possible to I think achieve some de-modification and help with that so that's increased the life span of the existing bridge but it was also to do with the fact that the existing bridge was carrying far more traffic than it was designed to carry out to carry so that's my the and also questions of capacity in relation to what we intend to do with the existing crossing it had an absolutely thorough and full health check when we had that problem last year I think it was so a huge amount of work was done then we know there is still further work to do so I've mentioned expansion joints and there'll be other things which would had we closed the bridge the traffic would have been very disruptive to traffic which will now be able to do with much less disruption on the existing bridge but there's nothing that's substantial that's in questions of safety or even the longevity of the bridge it's had a very thorough health check very recently we know there's more work to do and as ever there'll be maintenance work to do but nothing more substantial than that thank you thank you I think there's possibly hopefully will be the last evidence session that we will have on on on the bridge in fact when I last said that on the earlier march it proved to be to be incorrect but I do oh I'm told you're coming in on the 28th of june after the election probably to give us the exact date at the back end of august no doubt but um thank you very much and uh we look forward to hearing the exact date and what all the plans are for the opening sally and michael I'm I'm sorry you didn't get a question to specifically ask you you may be delighted but thank you very much for the evidence that you gave us this morning I briefly suspend the meeting to allow witnesses to change so good morning I'd like to reconvene the meeting we're going to move now on to a gender item two which is the food and drink strategy this is our first evidence session on food and drink in march the food and drink partnership published its vision for growth in farming fishing and the food and drink sector by 2030 I'd like to welcome a large panel and and I'm going to do it per the list not in the order so first of all James Withers chief executive of Scotland food and drink Patrick Hughes head of seafood Scotland David Thompson the chief executive of the food and drink federation Scotland Scott Walker chief executive of NFU Scotland Scott Lansborough chief executive Scottish salmon producers organization and James Graham chief executive of the Scottish agricultural organization society now James I think you you have been targeted to make a very brief opening statement if you'd like to make one sure okay thank you morning everyone I'll just give just a couple minutes of background I suppose to the strategy and who's in front of you Scotland food and drink is an industry body but our heart we're a collaborative partnership and we bring together and all the main sectors of the farming fishing food and drink industry alongside partners in the public sector to drive forward a strategic plan for for the industry and we have a strategic board who are the co-authors of the strategy so if you've got I don't you've got the copy of the strategy in front of you but but certainly six of us along with a number of our counterparts are co-authors of the of ambition 2030s we've titled the strategy and scott food and drink we're a membership body as well on our own right we've got about 370 members who are mostly food and drink manufacturers much like a number of the other bodies here today who are membership bodies this is a second strategy we've produced so the first one ran from 2007 to 2017 at the starting point then was very different this was a sector that was marked by static growth a relatively low level of ambition and a relatively low level of success I have to say that the second strategy this new one which is a road map out to 2030 is a very different starting point in the sense that the food and drink has become one of the best performing sectors of the economy we broke the earlier targets we set is Scotland's fastest growing exports but there are still some challenges but we start so we certainly don't start from a burning platform just a little bit of context obviously there's a huge amount of uncertainty around at the moment and we had a genuine debate about how we try and plan a very long-term strategy against the backdrop of brexit of trump of an ongoing debate with Scotland's constitutional future but we were quite clear that you know uncertainty is not new for businesses is always uncertainty and other countries around the world were planning and planning hard the Irish New Zealand is Scandinavian we're planning hard for their future and ultimately while the big I suppose geopolitical events are totally out with our control there are a number of factors that were very much in our control so how we develop our brand for farming fishing food and drinking in Scotland how we invest in our capability and how we build our market so we've built a strategy founded on those things and we've also recognised within the strategy where we've been less successful over the last few years so the level of confidence and profitability at the farm gate for example is not where we need it to be we haven't been successful in turning that around how we create farming fishing food and drink as a career destination of first choice we're still some way off that connection to our research community and we think there's more that industry and government can do in partnership around Scotland's dietary and health challenges that it has and so the strategy is founded on a vision that by 2030 we think we can make farming fishing food and drink Scotland's most valuable sector we'd like it to be a model of collaboration and responsible growth and that's the vision we've kind of founded on very very quickly what you know in one minute what the building blocks of the strategy are building our brand for Scotland this land of food and drink identity we think our brand is our fortune most countries around the world think they've got the best food and drink in the world we would say the same too but we actually we think we've probably got the best story and a phenomenal provenance story but we need to go out and tell that in terms of markets we want to sell more Scottish food and drink in Scotland across the rest of the UK and internationally and there are three key areas for us in terms of building capability investing in our skills and people investing in our supply chain and investing in innovation as well and then finally I suppose a kind of industry we want to be you know our view is that you know if you strip away the various factors of growth over the last wee while the single most important green it's been collaboration so collaboration between industry bodies with the public sector to and indeed actually a company level who often work closely together the second bit is about responsibility so I know that's often termed about having an approach which is beyond profit but actually we see a responsibility agenda being linked to profitable growth so responsibility around sustainability around health and how we invest in our people we've identified a £30 billion prize so our industry is worth £14.4 billion at the moment we think we can go more than double it by 2030 that's unapologetically ambitious I suppose when you strip it back it's about 5% year-on-year growth from the kind of 2015 starting point to 2030 and we see that as a statement of our potential I suppose as much of a target and it will take a huge amount of investment and collaboration but we've got a pretty good starting point so that those are the main features I suppose of ambition 2030 okay thank you very much before any of the members of the committee ask any questions I'd just like to let you know that there are members of the committee with interests I for example would declare an interest that I'm a member of a farming partnership I believe Peter would like to declare an interest thank you convener exactly that I would like to declare an interest that's been in a partner in a farming business as well and Stuart registered agriculture holding but derived no income from it okay okay so that's the the interest declared Peter I think you're going to start off on the first theme thank you and good morning gentlemen to be honest James you've answered quite a bit of my initial question in your opening statement but I mean I was just going to ask you to set the scene a wee bit and tell us how important food and drink is to the Scottish rural economy and what was the rationale for actually setting up the the organisation in 2007 and falling on from that for maybe the other members of the the panel you mentioned collaboration is being very important so I would like to hear how the the range of organisations that are here today how it how you all fit together in that and how you managed to work together to achieve the aim so you have covered some of that James but you know what was it thinking in 2007 about setting up the organisation in the first place yeah so how important as well as I say how important do you feel that the food and drink is to the rural economy yeah so you know our view is that food and drink farming and fishing will be Scotland's biggest industry by 2030 it's not far off that at the moment it's our biggest export and there's new the first 2017 qn export figures have just come out and we've got you know the largest food and drink export is scotch whisky our biggest food export alone in the UK is salmon so it's a huge part of the rural economy and I suppose you know similar to tourism it's one of those industries that stretches into every corner of of Scotland into some of our most fragile communities it employs about 119 000 people across Scotland in terms of the primary agriculture fishing and manufacturing sector and much more when you look right through the supply chain why do we come together in 2007 I think what you know that certainly for the organisations represented here and the others who are not here today there's real individual specialists but there were a few things that bound us together so there's a collective desire to grow the value and reputation of Scottish food and drink I'm being honest about it and I speak from you know my old job I used to do scots job at NFU we were I was a little bit siloed in how we worked I rarely spoke to the fishing organization despite the fact that they had many of the same issues and the principle of bringing all these organizations together was to do to work on the one thing that united us all which was growing value and reputation so these individual organizations still exist but we have a strategic board which brings everyone together I think that probably the one unique thing which I know some other sectors that I'm moving into was that we that whilst the creation of Scotland food and drink came came about really in 0506 and was launched in 07 under the previous Lib Dem Labour coalition since 07 we've developed a real partnership with the public sector so a deal in a way which is that industry will define the strategy and identify the priorities but the public sector will then align their investment behind that both the Scottish Government and their agencies too and that's been a real game changer so taking exports an example we've got a very clear export plan we've got eight top priority markets an sdi alongside our funding now invest their resources alongside that and so we think that has worked well but we can we can deepen that collaboration sharing resources sharing expertise over the next few years but I'll maybe let others chip in on what they see the value of of this kind of collaborative model does anyone want to come in as I did say I mean it is a large panel so so I'll try and be selective to give you all a chance does anyone particularly want to come in on that scott you come in and then I'll I'll go to the other end just emphasize what James has said about the export situation as he probably gathered this morning we're celebrating good export success first quarter of 2017 excuse me which puts us on course to be probably by a long chalk the UK's largest food export not just Scotland so that is good news we have three key areas in the world we want to export to the EU being one the USA Canada the other and the far east the third and I can tell you that in the first quarter of 2017 the EU's volume increased by 11 percent the far east by 24 percent but the by far away the biggest was North America by 35 percent that's for Scottish salmon exports so that's a key market for us and we we couldn't do that on our own we need to collaborate with the Scotland food and drink with the people who they've appointed the specialists in the market who are in the US and in Canada and they've been a great help to us because it's not just about the fact that we we know we produce a very top quality product which is good for you that's another part of the story but it's also about projecting the image of Scotland that's about projecting the heritage of Scotland projecting also the the qualities of the Scottish environment that that help us to produce this great food and that's key to the messaging when we go abroad and if we can do that together in a collaborative way Scotland PLC comes out really strongly and we all tend to convene if you like around various trade shows in the world Brussels being the most recent one which is the largest seafood show in the world I was also in Boston earlier this year and we have a terrific stand if any of you ever get the opportunity to come out and I know Mr Stevenson in his previous role as minister came out to Brussels on a couple of occasions and to see that and I think it's tremendous to see how well Scotland is projected on the international stage and the figures stack that up they support that sorry can I just ask I mean I too is pleased to see the the increase in in production well I wasn't quite sure because it was partly it appeared to me down to the devaluation of the pan partly to the increase in value of the product and partfully for difficulties of supply elsewhere in the world so how much has production gone up in the last year sorry that was just it's a good question production hasn't really gone up much in last year but it's gone up quite a bit in the last quarter and it's forecast to go up by 20,000 tons this this current year so we're going to see a significant uplift in actual volume this year but but the increase has really been and you're right you've you've spotted it it's in value it's I wouldn't say it's necessarily about currency it's more about it's more about shortage and increasing demand UNFAO has estimate that without doing anything we're going to get an 8% continuing growth in demand just by the end of the change in demographics of the of the global population and so you know it's a fairly easy one for us to try and fulfil that the biggest challenge is actually getting production up and I know somebody are coming out to visit a farm in the next couple of weeks and you'll see what the challenges are and how we're trying to overcome that but it's it's really about value value has risen on account of demand fundamentally far outreaches supply around the world. Okay Scott I'm going to bring you in and then I'll come to straight if I may. Thank you just building on a couple things that James and Scott highlighted and just highlighting two things for us that's particularly important about Scott Scotland food and drink going forward so one is the competition out there so if I look at Ireland for instance and what they were doing to promote the Irish brand abroad and what they were doing in terms of pooling their industries together for us to do nothing wasn't going to take us forward so Scotland food and drink have to pool things together so that we can compete with others the other other main thing I would highlight is about building trust so the supply chain has lacked trust particularly from the farming point of view we don't have huge trust in the rest of the supply chain working with Scotland food and drink is by bringing partners together trying to look at the opportunities and trying to develop some of that trust going going forward if I look at farming past five years farming comes have fallen by 75 so we've still got enough a long way to go so while the food and drink industry is booming in Scotland that benefit hasn't gone down to the farm level but in the new strategy I think that has very much identified as being one of the things that needs to be worked on and it's not a case of sort of disengaging is actually about trying to pool everyone closer together build that trust see how we can overcome the barriers that currently exist and how can we capitalise on what fundamentally is a fantastic product range that we have here in Scotland it's just a wee quicky specific thing that scotland's for speaking of the substantial success in the last quarter in North America I'm not quite certain but I believe Canada's probably the fourth biggest salmon producer in the world or it's up there anyway why are we successful in a market where there's actually quite a strong local producer of a similar product it's Pacific salmon of course why are we successful what what does that tell us about well I think Atlantic salmon as you know is a somewhat different species to the indigenous salmon that they produce and I think really we're targeting the high end of the market the premium end and fundamentally it's a better flesh and it's a better flavour well that's I would say that I suppose but we are targeting white linen cloth top table Manhattan San Francisco Chicago Miami but it's not really America it's four cities that's how we do it and it's very successful and again we'll do the same in the far east it will be city targeted and we've learned that really through our collaboration with scotland food and drink with the people that are out there in the market actually examining how you drive a marketplace and it's not about going into a country and spreading yourself thin it's about deep penetration into very specific markets and that's what we've done successfully thank you peter sorry you want to come back I would particularly like James Graham to comment you know because James has a slightly different perspective from from the rest of the the panel there and that he you know represents quite a range of co-operatives across scotland and how valuable do you find the organization James and you know what can we do better to address scott's problem of not enough of the success coming back down to the primary producer which is a huge huge bit of the question that I have certainly have thanks peter there's potentially a lot of ground to cover that Scotland food and drink first of all I mean for us you know when Scotland food and drink was created you know it was partly born out of a frustration amongst all of us that actually it was a constraint that we were working together and actually we were trying to do some of the same things in the same places but we were actually speaking to each other so simply by bringing it together you know we created something which is much more than some of the parts and I think the results of the last 10 years have proven that time and again and you know I still regard this as being in the fairly early stages of what it can achieve so for me I think Scotland food and drink is absolutely essential in terms of aligning policies aligning resources and actually enabling us to set some bigger targets and go for some bigger things that we would never have dreamt of before so really important in terms of collaboration in another sense supply chains and farmers I mean our objectives are twofold you know we want the most competitive efficient supply chains farm to retailer or whatever the outlet is our export market and that really requires to have the chain working together communicating together be risking for each other what they're doing and their investment plans you know requires collaboration and where there are collaborative chains it's proven time and again actually that they're the most competitive and we also have the opportunity for collaboration amongst our businesses horizontally as Scott has described to go and pool resources to tackle export markets or whatever the market is and you know in Scotland we have a very large SME food and drink sector and you know the opportunities and the gains for them from collaborating you know are really exponential if we can get them to collaborate a little more I think the other aspect with which Scott's you know been touching on is we also want as well as the most efficient supply chains we want the optimal connection of farming with the rest of the supply chain and that is sub-optimal at the moment in many cases not every case you know but in some cases and you know we want that better connection because we want more certainty for farmers we want in there in their investment and planning we want risk reduction for farmers we want a fair share of the value of the market for farmers and all those things cannot be achieved you know if if farmers are isolated from the rest of the chain and you know there's a number of factors in this that I would raise that need to be addressed I mean on the practical side the importance of data and digitisation to link the biological and the physical and the supply chain is greater than ever that potentials there but on many parts of the chain have a lot of data but it doesn't speak to each other and it's not joined up and you know the management resource in food businesses and in farms and the skills to take on that job are lacking trust and relationships we can't do any of that without trust and relationships in the chain they're going to be present to make a difference and the third thing I would mention is facilitation because there is a reluctance among some and simply a lack of management capacity among some to actually take on this role of creating a collaboration beyond moving beyond kind of transactional relationships we need honest brokers to to do some of that task so I better pause there but I could go you can see the passion coming through but but I think a pause is maybe the right time just to move on perhaps to the second theme that we have here which John Finnie's going to take on thank you good morning panel actually quite a few of the elements have been touched on already I was particularly taken Mr Withers when you talked about a model of collaboration and responsible growth and then used a much used word sustainability can I ask about the relative importance of the three markets so the the Scottish market the rest of the UK and indeed an international market and it'd be particularly keen to know about efforts to encourage home consumption so we've obviously touched on exports but our you know the building block and foundation for that is a strong home market so you know for every £1 we're selling internationally we're selling £2 within the UK now those figures are slightly skewed by whisky why don't you take whisky out the equation and just look at food alone for every £1 we're selling internationally we'll be selling four or five pounds in the UK so our domestic market in Scotland is critical and we need to do more there and we're looking in particular how we as an industry tie in much more closely with tourism and ensure that food and drink is a top experience as part of that visitor experience to Scotland and critically then we need more companies doing business elsewhere across the UK so beyond the Scottish border you'll see a lot of Scottish companies might be selling into 60 stores in Asda but they've got the potential to be selling to 600 across across the UK and probably in terms of that mix between Scotland and UK just looking at domestic assumption probably for every £1 a product we're selling in Scotland again it will be about three or four that goes south of the border into the rest of the UK so we've deliberately focused on the Scottish market, UK market and international but similar to the point Scott made about salmon going into the US it's really a four city approach that similar level of focus is what we're putting on the Scotland, UK and international markets so in UK actually there's a specific opportunity in London in that you know it's obviously the size of population it's high end markets premium there's a very very good perception of Scottish and the quality products in that demographic in London particularly in the younger element of the population in London and in Scotland it's really about that connection with tourism our visitor attractions as well as elements of public procurement that we can do more so you know we don't have a large amount of product that's the one thing we don't have if you want a mass volume of product Scotland's not the place to come to so we need to be really focused on the markets that we want to want to go to okay thank you again you touched on the issue of I mean what I'm just sorry John Fregan does Patrick want to come in on that I mean on the seafood aspect of it do you think there's an element to help John with his question well absolutely I mean I think Scott and James have spoken at length about the international element and the collaborative working that's going on there but but equally there's quite a number of collaborative initiatives going on in UK level as well from a seafood Scotland perspective we're working closely with Scotland food and drink to target key areas such as such as London and the northern sort of Manchester sort of northern powerhouse sort of area as well we're working with the likes of the craft brewers to try and link sort of seafood and beer to key influencers and key buyers and and there's sort of things that are happening in dune and we've also got a local advisory service as well called connect local which is linking the local buying opportunities and linking them to local markets and that's happening on sort of a Scotland wide level too yeah no thank you I was going to touch on that because of course there's talk of regional showcase events and I understand about wanting growth in other areas but you know maximising local food production and consumption can anyone comment on these the regional showcase events please so I mean this is kind of one of things that we've learned the success of over time so that there's a big national event that happens in every two years called showcase in Scotland so it'll happen for two days in October two or three days in October this year and we bring in about 90 buyers from 20 different countries around the world and we bring in about 50 or 60 buyers from the UK put them together with 120 Scottish companies and over sort of 36 hours of one-to-one meet the buyer appointments we'll do about 30 to 40 million pounds in sales and again why have we done that because we watched the Irish to it and they did it really well and we've been very blatant in looking at models that exist elsewhere New Zealanders have done this kind of model for a while so we've developed that in on a national level both for export markets and UK wide markets but our view was actually how do you replicate that in local areas how do you really drive local food networks regional on islands food development so if we had for example showcasing highlands how do we get all the restaurants top hotels visitor attractions in a room with key local suppliers and build those and build those connections because what you know in our experience and connect local would would I think emphasise this point you often have a lot of local suppliers keen to supply into local outlets a lot of local outlets that now increasingly get the value of sourcing locally in Providence not enough yet but a growing body that want to do that but actually there needs to be a catalyst to bring them together so that's the principle at developing these kind of events we might have showcasing highlands lowlands showcasing west whatever it might be over the next two years do you want to yeah just to sort of to add to that is that it's not just about bringing the buyers together that we're break we're building the capacity we're building the capability of these businesses alongside so we will run series of workshops for businesses that are interested in supplying locally to make sure that they have skills and negotiations and profitability within their businesses as well sorry thank you it's good to hear and I think it was Mr Graham that mentioned small and medium enterprises because that's you know the whole mark of Scotland and I wonder if we for instance it's often cited that taste of iron is an example of excuse me the manifestation of that is this the sort of direction I appreciate there's the higher level of production but is that a model that you could see a replicator elsewhere yeah I mean taste of iron is you know it's described as Scotland in miniature and I think well iron's described as Scotland miniature it's probably Scotland food and drink the principles in miniature too so they've brought 13 producers together collectively invested in one md who I think is in Thailand at the moment actually at a show selling iron products and so that model of and they've connected tourism very well if you get the ferry from Ardrossan in the waiting room there you've got a food and drink story so that their warming visitors up to it before they land in Broaddict but that kind of collaborative work happening geographically is is replicating self elsewhere so Shetland are starting to develop a stronger profile that's taste Orkney taste Ayrshire taste Persha I think the other element of collaboration though is not geographic but it's within sectors so Patrick referred to the brewers so the number of independent brewers has trebled in the last five years they're now working collectively five years ago if you'd asked one of them who's a competition that I said it's that brew around the corner now actually they recognize the competition is America it's Australia so they're working collectively to raise awareness of craft beer from Scotland which should hopefully you know be a rising tide that floats all their boats and we're seeing that in a number of sectors we've got only really five six seven eight rapeseed all producers they're now collectively raising awareness of their product jointly investing in websites working with chefs so that kind of collaborative ethos has been a total culture change I think I would say over the last few years you know one thing I would add to that I mean there is fantastic potential there's so much more of that but there is another kind of collaboration that you're seeing on the streets now which is farmers markets which again weren't there 20 years ago and that was probably one of the kind of forerunners of SME and local food collaboration and a fantastic development again lots more potential if we figure out the best way to develop those farmers markets thank you very much that's certainly good news thank you it's the next thing if I'm right John thanks convener yes there's been a little mention of skills so far and it was that was the kind of area I wanted to look at people and skills so I mean apart from selling products and so on over the last 10 years what have there been developments or what have the challenges been in that area of having sufficient people sufficient skills the right skills all that kind of thing skills is a huge challenge for the industry in common with many other industries skills development Scotland did a little bit of work on a skills investment plan and they estimated that there's going to be 27,000 job opportunities in food and drink over the next 10 years so it just shows you the number one that our jobs there but it shows number two the challenges of getting people to to take up those jobs and that's all types of role from food operators to mds and technical specialists and everything in between so it's an enormous challenge as I said we launched a skills investment plan with skills development Scotland for the food and drink sector in January this year and so they have a number of initiatives that they're using to support trying to fill that gap we also in partnership with lots of different organisations run quite a lot of food education work supported by the Scottish government and that ranges from growing and cooking to the kind of work that my organisation does on careers in the food industry we have a future in food careers plan that works with local schools and connects them with local companies and there are a number of partnerships around Scotland as a result with that we also inspire teachers we've been done doing continuous professional development with teachers in geographical areas currently doing some in the west of Scotland so can I just ask would that be mainly in rural areas no no it's all over Scotland and just just a last point on the future in food work is also we are supporting curriculum development with Scottish qualifications authority developing curriculum and exams that people can do all the way from third and fourth year in school all the way up to university level in food science and technology to try and fill some of the skills gap and make an easy career progression for people if they want to work in the food industry because I mean if you're talking about doubling your turnover that is I mean you might not need to double the staff but I mean across be it fish be it brewing be it food that is a potentially a huge number of people I mean we've also had kind of a bit of a concern with brexit that we might not be able to pull people in so where are the big concerns going forward well you've hit the nail on the head in terms of the the workforce and brexit for us our number one issue is is the the status of of the people who work in our food factories across the UK yeah we are going to come on to brexit rather than steal somebody else's thunder we may we may store that one out Scott Walker I think you want coming back to the people people and skills one of the things I think is quite interesting just now is in the curriculum for excellence there's an opportunity in fifth and sixth year to do a low level apprenticeship scheme now we are working with the likes of skills development Scotland trying to work with schools to try and give an opportunity for people to get experience of working on farms and working in the rural community so again it gives people like who are at school an opportunity to find out what work is like hopefully also gives them a showcase into the farming side and then into the food and drinks industry further on and I think that's something that the industry has to talk up more as we go forward because traditionally perhaps farming food and drink industry hasn't been the career of choice for many but when we see the growth that's going to take place in the food and drink industry to show people the range of jobs that are available and how you can start in one place in the industry but move through it throughout your entire career that's going to be increasingly important and can you think you can persuade young people in the cities to think about that if they're not near a farm and I think it'll be difficult the logistics are always going to be going to be difficult just to get people from either home to actually on the farm but if you go to any city in Scotland just use Edinburgh as an example there's plenty of farms around the edge of Edinburgh there's plenty of farmers who actually want to work with the local schools it's trying to build those connections and I suppose coming back to sort of the core ethos of Scotland food and drink it's about trying to break down those barriers and get people working together so we've not done it in the past but there's an opportunity to do more of it in the future I'd quite like just to bring in the deputy convener, Gal Ross, on that if I may please Yeah, Scott, I had actually written down a question about developing a young workforce is that the kind of thing that you're talking about the foundation apprenticeship side that actually takes the young people out of school and like you say puts them on a farm or maybe in a kitchen or with a chef in a hotel or you know all these kinds of opportunities because I know we're doing it in the care sector is that something that you're actively looking at in the food and drink sector yeah I look into two steps so you've got foundation apprenticeships as you're talking about there which is something new you know it's something new that's been introduced to the curriculum it's something new also for farming that we've not not been involved in and one of the difficult barriers that that we have in terms of overcoming is generally farms of small micro businesses so as a farm they're not like a big say food processor that maybe has an HR department who's well geared up to work with with the schools so it's trying to facilitate trying to work together say with groups of farmers to try and show them you know that's not as scary as they may think that there is opportunities because probably the first thing that people people talk about is it's just going to be too difficult and especially if you don't know anyone who's currently doing it you don't have any experience to draw on so we're trying to look in different areas just now if we could get a couple test pilots up and running and one good thing about the farming community is it talks so if we could get up and running successful in one area people will talk and hopefully we'll see it develop elsewhere. John Ew and to come back with us. The final point was this phrase that's being used coherent and joined up education programme I mean you talked earlier about selling things together and working together but I mean would a career in say salmon farming be very different from a career in a brewery how do you join that? David I'll let you come in on that. The answer is yes it can be different but actually a lot of the skills are transferable if you're looking at food science and technology and some of the key skills and perhaps microbiology or something along those lines then yes a lot of it is transferable and we see in our careers we see lots of people who've had wide and varied careers in the food industry and hopped from different types of different sectors so absolutely there's a lot that can be done collaboratively. The next theme is going to be taken up by Stuart. Just to pick up on what's been said I just give you a brilliant example from my constituency. Billy Gat's rockfish fish and chip shop in Whitehall's supplies seed potatoes to the primary school that's 300 metres away, they grow them, the potatoes come back to the chip shop and they're then used to make the fish and chips and the kids come and visit and see their own products so sometimes it can be totty wee things that actually just make a wee bit of difference in that community you know it's terrific but more substantial things there's a clear contrast it strikes me in supply chain which I want to talk about between the ownership structures and integration from salmon farms to plate and to processors and retailers that contrasts quite starkly with what is missing in farming and in particular is that absence of a vertical integrated chain broadly there are examples why farmers are not getting a fair shout and a fair contribution for their efforts whereas I think probably in the generality in salmon farming a reasonable share of the benefits of it is going back to the primary producer is that contrast that I'm trying to make a fair one and if it is what can we learn across the the two sides perhaps starting with Scott Walker it's a very complicated subject and I suppose the one thing I would highlight is wherever you are in the world you know trying to get a good return as a primary producer is difficult so it's not a unique situation that we find ourselves here here in Scotland we do have well sorry we don't have a good tradition of vertical integration in the primary sector here in Scotland but we do see it developing in some areas so I would highlight you know the pig producers for for instance which again it was born out of disaster you know partly the closure of the the main processor in Scotland but from that then came an initiative where the pig producers in Scotland worked with an overseas overseas company in terms of an abattoir and breakin and they now have more ownership of that production line and in terms of the product going going going to the market going forward and as an industry that's been contracting for many years it's now an industry that's actually an expansion you know they're looking for new pig producers to come in to increase production over over time and an old James Graham through SES has been has been heavily involved in facilitating that making that that a reality and I think that's the success story that we can we can build upon if I do that at one side and go to say the complete different end of the industry I'd look at the livestock side the cattle and sheep industry in in Scotland which is by far the biggest part of agricultural industry is you know roughly three out of every farms are involved in in that that sector and vertical integration is not something that's common there there at all the the difficulty is how do we actually move that forward you know how do we get a situation where a farmer can work hand in hand with a processor can identify a market and perhaps ultimately you know that the best scenario for me would be the farmer would hold that contract so the farmer would actually hold say that export contract to different country and he'd get a contract killed killed on and he would be exporting the product abroad I've sort of made the proposition that that vertical integration would be good and helpful could you just directly say whether you think it would be because while it might work for salmon it would would it be helpful I think the principle yes but you couldn't say it would be it's a solution in every case because simply through vertical integration there isn't a guarantee there'd be a better return but I think it would be a good step forward for most parts of the industry well let me just take that on further then um given that we're in parliament we're parliamentarians are there inhibitions or difficulties that the government and we as parliamentarians should be engaging with to break down barriers to be most successful top to bottom of the industry you know what what are we doing to stop you doing it that we should stop doing I'd like to bring scott in them I'd like to go to the other end of the table to to bring the other scott in just because I mean it's obviously something that maybe they do in their industry so scott if you'd like to carry on and then if I can bring you in no scott walker first I'll be very very brief just two things I would highlight I would think more could be done to encourage producer organisations so to get groups of farmers working collectively together so that they would have the power to negotiate the contracts elsewhere in supply chain you know not not enough has been done done there so that's that's the first first thing and then the second thing would be about trying to help investment in processing capacity so two things the government could do in terms of investment in processing capacity capacity so where there's a grant scheme just now to invest in processing I think there should be conditions on when that grants paid to look at more collaborative models where they're working closer with with farmers farmers himself is one thing and secondly when you are looking at increasing processing if if they could be greater emphasis placed on looking at farmer co-operation so we've had stuff in the serial sector in recent years for instance investment up in up in metros which was in essence farmer farmer based so we're coming from a very you know small scale level just now we've got a long way to catch up but targeting in certain ways I think could help make those those loops in bounds Scott I mean from from some producers it seems to be more vertical integration that you want to add to that to that yeah a little bit taken by some of the things Scott has just said I think is suggesting that more producer organisations is a good idea re-support that that premise I think that that will be important but I don't know enough about his sector to comment any further than that but I will pick up on a couple of things he said with regard to the pig farmers born out of disaster consolidation and contraction that's the history of Scottish salmon farming fundamentally and that's 17 years ago now born out of disaster at that time a significant consolidation and I'm talking about horizontal as opposed to vertical integration at that time to the extent that now we really only have seven salmon farming companies of real scale in Scotland two or indigenous Scottish companies so as much as it works very efficiently and there's vertical integration that gives undoubtedly a return to the primary producer and we've got great examples of the whole the vertical integration right to retail I mean you know one of our high street retailers really sets the product specification for the primary and the secondary producer before it hits the shelf and that includes the packaging what's put in the label so it's completely vertical completely vertical integration in that example which is very successful but you know the other side of this is as if you like we're sitting in the Scottish Parliament here a lot of that's inward investment from abroad you know so do we have the capacity to for a start do we have the appetite for the risk because there's a significant amount of risk when you go into large scale primary production and that was the cost of the consolidation 17 years ago in Scotland salmon farming so to establish an average size salmon farm in Scotland now you need you won't get any change out of four million pounds and that'll take you at least two and a half years to get a return on that you know it's quite a challenge and I you know if asking what could parliamentarians do to help well we we're already talking to the through marine scotland to the planning minister about you know speeding up the planning process that's one of the things that that would help in primary production for us but we're a model at works is it the model that you would really like to transfer completely over to the arable and pastoral section you want to come in yeah I mean I think my kind of you know initial answer to Stuart would be on vertical integration is it's it's desirable but not essential and I think you also have to think about where you start from if you look around Europe in fact if you look around the world vertically integrated farmer coops is a norm model in many many countries particularly in dairy and on mainland Europe it's it's a normal model but when you actually examine how they've created those things and how whether we could replicate that today in the UK you know the answer seems to be that the best the best way to have done that was to start 100 years ago and have 100 years worth of accumulated capital and then in course in the middle of the last century we had statutory marketing boards in the UK which removed the need for farmers to make for investment themselves and so we kind of we're in a we're in a catch-up place now trying to catch up with what others have done and the question arises is can we actually come up with a capital to compete with some of those businesses that have been around for 100 years I was a director of a co-op an executive director of a co-op that was vertically integrated in Scotland and they ultimately sold the business because they simply couldn't keep pace with the capital requirement for secondary value-added processing and it's it's a it's a it's a common problem there are quite a number of co-ops involved in primary processing bringing the farm product together doing the initial work on it and then selling it on to the next guy in the chain and it's that next step in the chain that secondary processing which is really capital intensive and it never ends you know the capital in the capital requirement continues so you see in Ireland where the dairy co-ops you know one of the big dairy co-ops actually separated its primary processing from its secondary processing the secondary processing became a plc because it's much higher risk and much higher capital investment on the primary processing stayed in the co-op with the co-op owning some of the shares in the plc so it's back to the scott's point it's complex you know it's complex jameson do you well perhaps you could ask it now and then maybe james could answer that as part james withers could answer that as part of the well my final question is probably directed at patrick supply chain where we've got an odd situation in seafood where we don't have enough of the stuff that we catch landed to supply our processors and we're importing lots of other peoples and is that on both sides of the equation an opportunity lost for us now the catchers at present not always been the case are actually doing extremely well the processors are finding life harder so the problem is in a different bit the chain in in that is that and again the question is you know we as parliamentarians and as government what can we do to help and finally i'll just say by the way just on irish 30 years ago my wife always bought kerrigo butter she now buys grams i wonder why you'd come in maybe not on this one maybe on another question which you can build it in but that was particularly at patrick said patrick if you'd like to answer that okay um yeah you are right what you say and if we had five six years ago we could have flipped that equation and said that the catching sector were suffering quite badly the processors would have been um would have been quite quite favourable for those situations um there are potential issues that processors at the moment are facing um james and everybody else has alluded to the fact that investment is is difficult whenever capital investment is difficult when you get to a business of scale um so grant um schemes such as emff or maybe excluded or from businesses of scale businesses are suffering from rates as well at the moment as well so there are issues that are particularly impacting on processors but yeah we need to try in some form get to this equilibrium where we actually have a fair return back to the catching sector but we have the processors that are able to purchase fish from from local markets as well do you forgive me you're describing the problem do you have solutions that you'd like to put to us um at the moment that that's what we're trying to work up um we're looking at um the ambition 2030 strategy we're looking at the aquaculture strategy strategy as well and seeing where the seafood sector fits in there and actually come up with a strategy of our own but we're out of consultation at the moment and we're engaging with all the key sectors to try and move that forward okay we're going to move on to the next scene if we may which is uh jamey gree thank you um before we continue may i just ask a question um to uh david thompson um can you just explain what the food and drink federation scotland is and how that relates to scotland food and drink okay yeah um sorry we're on um we i'm a part of the food and drink federation scotland so i'm the chief executive in scotland and we have a scottish board but we're a part of a UK organisation uh fdf which is the biggest trade association for food and drink in the UK um uh or great britain sorry um uh but in scotland we have um a scottish team and a scottish board so we're we have autonomy within that within that structure we are a trade association a membership association of food and drink manufacturers and uh we are um uh fully paid up member have been uh um since day one of uh scotland food and drink um and i set on the executive board like my colleagues here um um and so our members are some are the same uh as with james and some other organisations and some are UK companies who manufacture in scotland um for example uh nesley uh would be one of those examples who are members of ours and also manufacture in scotland thank you that's very helpful um so one of the key pillars of the 2030 strategy is around innovation i wonder if we could delve into that a little bit more and there are a lot of words used in the documents such as collaboration raising the profile uh single gateway etc in many ways these are often perceived to be quite jargony so i wonder if you might actually put some examples to what you're doing to drive forward innovation okay i'll touch on that to start with uh and the dangers you end up with yeah sort of jargon bingo and the document uh has a bit of that going on which i would accept one example what happened in innovation um you know innovation in many ways is the ballgame for us what what's happening in terms of the food and drink market consumer uh appetites how people like to buy uh the kind of global population stuff is changing at such a rapid pace that we need to evolve with that one example of the kind of thing we're doing um if you look back about a year ago and if you were a food and drink company uh on need a farmer looking for support to innovate whether that's innovate in types of products your staff your processes there was about 150 different support tools that existed in scotland that you could tap into between various different agencies so most people look at that and go well that's just a maze i'll never navigate that i'll go back to the day job and innovation becomes a thing that they'll look at down the line there's a new service that we're just launching that we've been involved in as a scotland food and drink project called making innovation happen one number one website if you want if any part of innovation you're interested in start there and you'll be guided through that process and that's quite a good snapshot of what's happened in the in our world over the last 10 years 10 years ago and not much was happening and most companies said there's not enough happening in food and drink in scotland often the criticism you hear now is there's so much going on in food and drink scotland it's really it's really difficult to navigate around that so a key part of what we need to do is to streamline that landscape so making innovation happen is one example of where we'll pull the various different support tools into one place a single gateway so companies whether they're at the farm gate fishing boat manufacturing factory floor have one place to go to try and steer through that what was previously amazed beyond that the big priority is to get more and more i think food and drink companies to consider academic and research solutions to their problems and to get more and more research on academics of thinking of applying their solutions to the food and drink industry so the work of the likes of interface to bridge business and academia together because we're blessed with you know world leading institutes that we probably haven't taken the most advantage of so a lot of the success of the last decade has been a new new emergence of new industry new products so for example the that you mentioned the draft uh it's a craft beer and and agendicillaries for example uh where do you see the opportunities lie in terms of potential for new product areas that scotland could expand on based on for example our resource climate scale expertise are there any fledgling food and drink industries that you think will boom over the next 10 to 15 years sorry just to remind you if you want to come in to catch my eye james is very quick at catching my eye sorry and launching straight away before before i can get to anyone else so if anyone else does want to come in please let me know sorry james okay apologies i'll restrain myself um i think there's a part of what led to ambition 2030 was about a year's worth of research and scotland's strength which is quite unusual for a small country is the diversity of products we have so if you look at no way it's a seafood world um if you look at denmark i suppose it's intensive life so you look at new zealand dairy is very strong lamb's very strong whereas actually we've got an incredible uh range of products which is our strength so our view is not to back one horse or the other but there's a few trends that we see that happening so the health trend for example um that desire people are thinking harder about their food choices where their food comes from and the whole debate around diet and nutrition now scotland you know paradoxically despite our challenges domestically with with diet and health has one of the healthiest natural larders in the world from cereals to lean red meat to soft fruit and vegetables so there's a real opportunity in tapping into that trend and selling that that health message the other trend which is a gift to scotland um is this you know interest in provenance and where food comes from now that means different things to different people so in in china the only thing they want to talk to about is food safety just tell us about safety controls in japan they take food safety for granted but they want to talk about environmental controls in the us they like the heritage story and the expats story and the history around it so it's it's kind of different things in in different markets but it's more about fixing on those particular trends which are actually relevant whether you're a craft brewer uh seaweed manufacturer or you know mainstream livestock or fish producer and using those trends to to drive growth because we know that they are kind of here to stay having said that everyone then put their hands up which may have been a dangerous thing to say i'm going to start with scott james and then david if i could ask you to keep them succinct that'd be great thanks in the agriculture salmon agriculture industry innovation is now a high priority um scottish agriculture innovation centre was established three years ago now with funding from the higher council higher funding council um the scottish government backed that and for every pound that's been invested of public money three pounds has come back from the industry so it's it's been a it's been a worthwhile i think return for the public money and that and what's it achieved well the priorities of and it's well documented i'm sure you read it in your sunday newspapers we have a risk and impact of biological threats that's another name for sea lice we are looking to move into new production models more exposed sites more onshore super small production to give the salmon a shorter time at sea in other words to shorten the exposure to lice and we're investing last year we invested 55 million pounds in new non-medicinal approaches to sea lice management so we're taking this problem seriously and we expect to start rolling out some serious innovation in the design and development of our of our new new sites and the spin-off from that we think is commercialisation of scottish innovation as well that we can actually export the scottish know-how we've got a world-class facility at sterling university the institute of agriculture there and we're already exporting our know-how around the world and we see that increasing over the next few years i'm going to come back to the primary and the primary connection to the supply chain because we you know the need for innovation in both those areas we've kind of talked about and i mean the point is incentivise the behaviours we wish to see and what i'm referring to is innovation combined with collaboration and there are a couple of precedents where that has actually happened the EU fruit and veg regime for instance provided um and still provides a grant towards innovation programmes that recognised producer organisations can implement and that grant has effectively transformed scotland's soft fruit sector into a superstar sector we have something similar uh although not not nearly equivalent to that we have a knowledge transfer and innovation fund grant scheme which is available to uh to all farmers um and is now beginning to address some of the difficulties that we have in the chain like seasonality in lamb and supplying lamb year around to to supermarkets looking at how we apply lean management techniques into dairy farming a number of those things but we don't have this general incentivisation available across all sectors at anything like a meaningful level so my answer would be incentivise the behaviours we want to see support and focus assistance on collaboration with innovation let me give you the last chance on this topic two things on innovation the first is the service that james mentioned make innovation happen um uh just to highlight the fact that it's not just about new product development it's also around processes it can go into hr it can go into anything so it's an important tool for businesses to use and then the second thing is just to highlight the wealth of academic expertise that we have in scotland i was at the launch yesterday of the new food science and technology labs at abertay university a fantastic facility 3.6 million pounds investment in trying to provide great facilities not just for students but also for businesses to to make use of similar facilities at the new rout institute in Aberdeen similar facilities in queen market university and in other places so there's actually a huge amount of investment in in in this area um by the public sector um we're now going to come back to a subject which some of you touched on earlier might brexit and uncertainty um we're leaving the EU we could also be leaving the single market and the customs union we could have trade barriers for our food exports and i don't mean just tariff barriers i mean actual delays at customs physical delays and exporting our food in our exports to europe so how are you gauging and how are you dealing with the risks to our food and drink exports to europe um i think this goes cross-holding if i may start with james and sort of patry and and scott i think we'll want to contribute so if we start with james um okay thank you i suppose to put the issue in perspective might be helpful at the start at least helps me get around my head around the subject last year we sold £5.5 billion of food beyond the UK 40% of that went to the EU now four billion out of that five and a half is whiskey so put that to one side of the 1.5 billion we did and food 70% went to the EU so it is absolutely critical market for us and from a trade point of view no deal is a bad deal in part because of all the 5200 WTO tariffs our food gets hit the worst a big variety i think in scotland's sector it's maybe two percent on fresh salmon tariff and 13 percent on smoke but if one of our other partners caught me scotton we're here they would tell you the price of scotch beef if it defaulted those tariffs would go from an increase of somewhere between 50 percent or 100 percent so growth wouldn't be the debate it would be hanging on to what we've got which i think would be very difficult how do we how do we tackle that one is ensuring that food and drinks recognises a priority i hear a lot of talk of aviation and automotive while food and drink manufacturing is worth more than both of them combined in in the UK so we need to make absolutely sure that trade deals with europe are priorities and that third country trade deals beyond europe food doesn't become a bargaining chip that we hand away because most other countries that i've seen in terms of trade deals they want with the UK want access to the UK for their people and i think that will be a challenging debate given immigration is driven it and they want access for their food so so we need to be mindful of that how do we address that a lot of that is out with our control beyond just making the point that that farming fish and food and drink has to be prioritising brexit negotiations on third party trade deals we need to be better at spreading our markets and risk management so um there's a reason that brexit is probably least scary for the whisky industry they're still concerned and that's because for start they're not going to have a tariff but they're also dealing with another 180 countries around the world we've got too much business in too few hands so scott um scott lands were mentioned the kind of expo profile we've now got 11 trade staff in 11 cities around the world jointly funded by sdi government and by industry eight of them are in cities beyond europe we need to do more trade there because there will always be political barriers whether it's russian input in bargos whether it's a change in chinese regulations whether it's brexit another eurozone crisis and we need to make each of those crises a little less scary than they are by spreading our markets so investing in markets elsewhere is critical to managing that risk but certainly in terms of you know the actual brexit negotiations having food and drink at the top of the priority list and recognising that for us it's going to be all about trade access to skilled labour and the future of funding particularly at primary level as well as manufacturing patrick yeah i would agree with everything that james has said and we've already seen from an industry point of view that we've got a lot of businesses that are basically taking notice and actually trying to spread the spread the market risk looking at new markets out with europe as well not underestimating the importance of the european market to these businesses at any point scott do you want to comment on that yeah we we export a perishable product yes you know it's got a short life so for us and james mentioned the potential financial tariffs we would incur if we had a wto relationship believe it or not that's not such a significant concern our concern is frictionless non-financial tariff barriers in other words pieces of paper consignment we've just gone through an exercise with the chinese authorities and it's james said earlier the chinese are paranoid about food safety for historical reasons and we are now we are now getting electronic consignment signatures within scotland although it's been a bit of a resource issue by the local authorities but they've resolved it now so we can get our salmon into the chinese market within 48 hours we need to do that if we're going to the european news 39% of our export market and so if we can get to manhattan in 24 hours surely we can we can be in paris and under that and we won't be if we've got tariff barriers that are demanding the lorries are stopped at the seaport or at the airport or whatever to pass bits of paper the EU currently the single market ensures that our the customs union ensures that doesn't happen so we want that to continue scott wants to come in but might you have a follow-up on that or should we take scott now no please to take scott yeah it's worth starting off just by saying from primary producers and initially brexit's been positive because the pound's weekend so it's made the imports more expensive and made our exports more more attractive so at this sprint time there's been been a lifting in primary primary production the impact then is very different for the different sectors and I'll just highlight two and then say something that I think we could do in short term to deal with some of the volatility so if you look at the beef sector for for instance roughly we export as much as we import in the UK UK as a whole so if we can't export to Europe because it tariffs up put in place as long as we put the same tariffs in place here in the UK then for our beef sector you might say the situation will be neutral to positive but that's reliant upon it not just being a one-way trade deal so we may not be able to export to Europe but the UK government can't open up our doors and just allow food to flow and flow in here so that's if you're a beef farmer so beef farmer is looking ahead it's all about what's the UK government going to do about tariffs in this this country if you're a sheep farmer though the situation is a disaster and absolute disaster for a sheep farmer going forward you know 60% goes to to Europe you know approximately if tariffs go up in up in Europe then there's no other markets that we'll realise overnight and for the sheep industry prices will plummet so that's that's just to highlight the difference in the different sectors short term what can we do to mitigate some of those those factors is about investing in the Scottish market and the UK market you know trying to drive more home consumption of product to sort of deal with that volatility so at least here we're sort of stoken up and maximising the opportunity to sell products here in the UK long term as the other speakers have said we've got to to guard against agriculture food not being one of the big barndon chips in terms of doing trade deals deals abroad so not just in terms of Europe getting a deal safe for financial services quickly and selling agriculture food down down the line but also in terms of when the UK looks around the world and they'll look at right what deals are we going to do we've got a fantastic industry here we've got one that stretches to every corner of of scotland we've also got one i think that that people don't necessarily totally appreciate they don't don't see it and if we sell ourselves short here we're going to sell off one of the big wealth generators of scotland one of the big job creators of scotland of the future i'm going to bring peter in if i may with it with a brief follow-up and then back to my yeah well i mean one thing i would say to scott lansborough i mean my opinion would be and you'll know the market better than me but my opinion would be if we can sell you know salmon and get it into american market in 24 hours and we can sell salmon in the chinese market i wouldn't be too scared about selling it into the european market that would just be a comment another thing i would say is as far as getting food and drink as a priority to get to get tariff free trade one of our best a allies in that is the southern irish because they are desperate for free trade into our marketplace you know and so they're battening exactly the same court as we are to get free trade across europe you know their their agriculture industry would be decimated if our if our marketplace was made much more difficult for them to import to export into our market so it's just a comment that you know there are there are allies out there that are looking for the same sort of deal as we are might do you have a brief question follow up yes yes of course can i just follow up what's being said so basically correct me from but you're all agreement that that we need a trade deal and when we're looking at trade deals it's about getting a trade deal within a within the agricultural sector rather than trading it off against something else like the fishing industry you know we're talking about a trade deal within the fishing industry rather than trading that against some other trade deal with manufacturing or whatever have i have i am i summarising that correctly scott if you want to answer for the group you may i would ask you to keep it brief yes that's a big concern but for the UK as a whole food and farming is seen as less valuable than some other sectors so we get traded away at the expense of the benefit of other sectors okay okay we're going to move on to the next theme if i may which is jemmy green thank you convener two short questions the first is on the in your opinion to anyone on the panel is the current digital infrastructure in scotland sufficient to help the food and drink industry meet its ambitions and strategy or at least is it heading in the right direction that's the first question and could i ask one person to answer that so i don't know who would like to take on broadband um you're all ducking um scott why didn't you you try that and we'll let you james come in on the second one it's very poor you know in certain areas of scotland it's still up not up to scratch the cost for whether it be a farm or small scale producer to put in the necessary broadband capacity that they need is just prohibitive at this point in time is are things improving yes they are improving but they're not improving fast enough jemmy jones was the second yeah that's thanks for that um simple reply the next one though is on a more positive note is around the possibility for use of technology in general so for example there was talk about an e-commerce platform james yonce also mentioned about data sharing amongst the supply chain to help improve efficiencies and productivity does anyone have any views on how this platform might work in practice it sounds like an interesting but quite a big ambition or project to implement james it looks like you're if you could answer that yeah i think um a large part of the success of e-commerce in scott and we'll be back to your first question about digital coverage and just to add to scott for me i think the mobile connectivity telecommunication is important as the broadband broadband piece although i appreciate telecommunication i think is a reserve matter so yeah e-commerce you know clearly the amount of business that is you know being transacted online is huge and is growing and i think scotland might be a little bit behind the pace compared to other countries at the moment what that looks like in a food and drink context is you know we've done work with amazon for example that are interested in in in looking at what a scottish shop online might look like but the those existing third party platforms take huge margins out of the chain in product areas like seafood i suppose where there aren't huge margins to be taken no country in the world is a national e-commerce platform for the food and drink industry is that something we could look at could scottland be the first there now a large part of that is about building the e-commerce capability of individual businesses and building that connectivity piece so it's a big um i suppose that kind of thing would be a big aspiration and there's some discussion happening now there's an e-commerce action group that's coming together scottish enterprise hie and involved as well about how we build that capability of companies to tap into that but you know my aspiration would be um you know scott told about the brussel seafish show i mentioned the one in thailand that's happening just now there's 10 companies there i would like on an ipad the remaining 850 companies to be there that you can trade with uh other countries are looking at that i don't think that should be an aspiration we we should uh necessarily think is is beyond us but it's a huge amount of investment in capability and awareness to require to do that thank you we um have quite a few themes still to get through and uh we're coming quite close to the time that we'd allocated to this so i don't want to lose any of this because i think it's very important but i would ask members if they could try and limit their questions on on each of the themes and if you could look within your group to find the most appropriate person to answer it would help them and without curtailing richard yours is the next theme good morning gentlemen scottland's food is fantastic salmon fantastic but basically scottland's health is a worry we can expect to see 40 percent of us being a beast by 2030 beastie is is not just a health issue it's a major risk to a productive economy so what would you suggest anyone as a strategy as a strategy supporting public health and tackling a beastie is it right can it be amended i'll shorten these questions down where do you think we should target david you yes so yes obesity is a major problem in scotland and an increase in one not just in scotland but across all of western europe i think the second thing to say is that there's a lot of work going on in the food industry to support reducing calories reducing sugar um at the moment as we stand also the public are changing what they're buying so now more low or no calorie soft drinks are being drunk than full sugar so things are changing in a very positive direction so that that's part one but there's a still an enormous amount to do and the food industry needs to play its part in that in terms of the strategy the strategy is very clear as as i hope james is highlighted earlier around responsibility and that responsibility includes to the health of the people who work in the industry and also to the health of the nation and i think what collectively we're very up for is is you know a clear compact with government and others on what the best things to do for the industry are and that means should support be angled slightly differently and it means that you know the industry will have to play its part in in helping do what it can what i would say is the reformulation targets that were set at UK level are having a significant effect on categories in the industries and some of those will be met others will be more difficult to meet and what we don't want to happen is that small and medium-sized enterprises in Scotland miss out because they don't have the ability to reformulate they don't have the technical skills or the consumer analysis or things like that so we are working very closely with the Scottish Government to see how we can support companies in Scotland to actually reduce their calories reduced their sugar reduced their portion size in a way that consumers will still want to buy them thank you gail the next theme is yours yeah i've been thinking all morning about how to formulate these questions and i think probably the best way is just to be quite direct about it i was at an event last night about sustainable food systems and the environment and tim benton from the university of leeds and chatting house was was very specific about climate change and the increase in global temperatures and what that would mean to obviously our food producing systems if we're going to be doubling our turnover in the years up until 2030 how does that impact on the environment and why is there not more focus on climate change in the strategy James so sustainability is the key part of the responsibility piece and sustainability hits a sweet spot where you know it's essential for the future ability of us to produce food here but it's also actually part of the brand and it's a selling piece as well my view on this and i'll use beef as an example because you'll hear a lot of people saying that beef production is an environmental car crash the amount of water it uses you're feeding edible human grain into the mouths of cattle that could be and we've got a you know a billion people that are malnourished in the world how how environmentally sustainable is that my views if you're going to do beef production come and do it in scotland we're not short of water and we're very good at growing grass which we can't eat and turn that into protein so i think that's where scotland's place within that sustainability agenda is very strong that said there is more we need to be doing so we could definitely we can be more efficient in our use of resources now a lot has been driven by the fact these resources are getting more expensive anyway so so why wouldn't we do that but there is more that can be done around sustainability and we're keen to commit to making a contribution on that front but i think that scotland does have a strong advantage and salmon would be a great example you know the world needs sustainable protein and i think it was 2015 was the first year that more farmed fish were eaten than wild caught fish globally and that's one of the few areas actually where scotland can be a world leader i mean we're the third largest producer but actually we've been going backwards in terms of market share but we could be a real world leader there are biological challenges for sure but there's a real potential to invest in that in scotland so sustainability is to us is critical and actually i think scotland can overplay his hand scott man's problem on the back of that james has kind of given me an introduction there we're fully aware of the climate change going on in salmon farming just now just to give you an example the algae that was and used to be indigenous to our waters is now off greenland and the algae we now experience is tropical and that's actually not conducive to healthy fish be they wild be they farmed in scotland waters and we've had a lot of challenges gill health challenges over the last four to five years that have been really kind of shrouded if you like by the story about sea lice and that's again another reason that's a consequence of climate change and warmer water so i just read this morning on the wires that sea lice numbers in iceland are now at a record high and that's they're putting it all down to the sea temperature rising by one degree so we're facing these challenges now and we're you know we're spending money trying to deal with them it's it's not easy and it won't be solved overnight but the the potential we have in the world market and i think we've alluded to it already from a healthy food perspective if you have two pieces of oily fish per week that'll give you your omega 3 requirement you know there's lots of great positions there from a healthy food perspective also from a an environmental sustainability the water usage to produce a kilo of salmon is remarkably small compared to other proteins our carbon footprint is remarkably small our physical footprint if you take all the salmon farms of scotland and add them all together you get three golf courses that's the physical footprint of salmon farms in scotland it's not very much considering it's now worth six you know let me get this right about 680 million pounds in exports to the country so you know there are lots of good sustainable things there but the biological the whole climate change thing for us is biological challenge the marine waters in scotland are changing and that's giving us biological challenges as a consequence we're going to be developing all sorts of different styles of farming probably going more offshore but also doing some enclosures as well in the sea gail wants a follow-up and i'll try and bring you in scot on the back of gail's follow-up yeah i just wanted to ask about reducing food waste as well what contribution will the strategy make to reducing food waste by a third by 2025? Take both questions quickly if we go back to climate change one of one of the strange things for me in terms of the carbon emission figures is you have in agriculture emissions and you have a land use emissions now land use for us is generally sequestration of carbon agriculture doesn't get any credit for that that goes into land use figures we simply get all the emissions from agriculture so i would ask anyone when they do have a look at the carbon emissions figures from agriculture they actually will have a look at the land use as well and combine the two and also when we talk about climate change going going forward the industry does have a number of initiatives in place whether it be bvd eradication in different schemes which is all about increasing the efficiency of agricultural production which ultimately helps us in terms of our sea of two emissions in terms of food waste the others all have come from a different angle but one of the bits i would highlight is the waste that takes place from farm to the processor now a lot of the products that are produced on the farm totally fine for the processor but because of the specifications that put in place there's a lot of rejection take it all happens and what we've got to be looking at as an industry is how do we one change consumers attitude so products that they reject just now because a brussel sprout is less than 20 millimetres in size or greater than 40 millimetres in size people won't buy but fundamentally nothing wrong with it and how do we then take those products also that may be out of spec and look at adding value to them in the in the future okay yeah i just quickly have one more thanks i'm sorry we're gonna have to move on to write that and thank you and we've heard about the profits to primary producers but also workers within the industry tend not to be paid what you would say living wages they don't have work opportunities that provide a sustainable income and that's why it's quite difficult to get people within the industry and keep them there it tends to be seasonal low paid and the like on the other hand at the end of the spectrum we have people getting food from food banks because food is expensive and unaffordable to some people but yet in the middle we're saying that this could be the primary profitable sector in Scotland someone's making money somewhere but how do we tackle food poverty and indeed poverty on the basis of those working in the industry scott do you want to tackle that scott walker it's one of these it may give your colleagues the time to gather their thoughts i was hoping we were going to scott lands brother at the beginning well a couple of things i would highlight in terms of any agricultural worker they get paid the highest minimum rate of pay that's that's there so the minimum rate of pay in agriculture is actually higher than the rest of the economy it's not a living wage well so so well we've we've got say the agriculture wages board in agriculture and the minimum rate of pay for agriculture is set at the national living wage regardless of your age and then at the same time there's a higher rate of pay in agriculture for people that have more experience so i'm not saying there isn't more we can do but we do have a higher base rate than if anyone else the problem that say the farming has tends to be about the low margins you know in terms of you know the ability to pay to pay more in terms of say food and the price of food i come from a slightly different angle in that food for society as a whole has never been cheaper if you look at the percentage uh that people pay on their food in terms of disposable income it's lower than it has ever been been in the past i think there is a wider societal problem in terms of people having the opportunity to progress the opportunity to to earn enough that allows them to purchase what's what's out there but food per se is actually exceptionally cheap i think in this country if you go back through throughout history i just um there is profit here somewhere Stuart Stevenson was talking about producers and what they get from basic production but the workers are also i mean it's seasonal it's you know we talk about a crisis in brexit and migrant workers and who tend to be lower paid the industry has to somewhere have a workforce that is well recognised well recompensed for their efforts because somewhere in the middle the profit is coming out because it is a profitable industry but it's not it's not reflected either in the price or indeed the the the wages to workers your suggestion i'm going to go to the other scott to give you a chance to to gather your thoughts scott land spread do you want to help me no i'm kidding the model in the salmon industry at the moment we are not we don't apply a lot of people it's not labour intensive any longer but um we're all signed up to living wage and and every farm unit now is a kind of a business unit of its own and everyone's targeted on yield and everyone gets a share of profit on the business unit so there's an incentive you know it's the basic for the basic farm worker if you like they're getting the living wage but they're undoubtedly going to get some incentive on top of that and it's an incentive to you know ensure that there's high productivity which seems to work pretty well but i would also counter on the profitability thing uh this is a capital intensive industry we talked about capital and the frustrations with getting access to capital before profit has to be sustainable as well in any industry in any sector and we you know i i fear some of the political discourse in the UK in general in this country is that profit's becoming a dirty word profit isn't a dirty word if it's used properly and we have to recognise that it's there to maintain sustainability. I take your point about making sure that everyone has a living decent wage and and decent incentives which is the model we we try to work with but also you know investors need to get a return otherwise they'll go elsewhere. I'm just going to move if i may to the final theme which is Jamie and then there is one question at the end Jamie thank you um so i think just to summarise a lot of what we've talked about today and looking forward to the future we know that the Scottish food and drink industries are supported by quite wide and very public bodies and organisations at local level, Scottish Government, UK Government and even the EU with a variety of grants loans and funds available to them but bringing it back to this Parliament what do you think the top priority should be for the Scottish Government to help the industry meet its ambition of doubling its value from £14 billion to £30 billion in the next 13 years so what would be what should be their single top priority and it could be one word or one sentence answer I don't mind. James Jordan will start on that. So I suppose strangely because industry normally sit here and say we need more money please and support and I'll maybe come on to one suggestion on that in a second. It's actually a mindset thing it's this approach in collaboration with this industry we'll give you the space to lead and set out the strategy and we will align our resources behind that that sounds yeah a bit soft and fluffy but as a principle it's been a total game changer so we're given that space to say in export markets these are the eight markets that matter we only want to go here can you back us please and that's happened and one thing though actually that you know we talked a lot about supply chains and the one thing that I've learned from supply chains is you need honest brokers in there to make things happen if a processor wants to develop more collaborative supply chain farmers are suspicious the farmers want to drive it the process is suspicious if retailers want to do it everyone's suspicious so you bring in the honest broker that works between them and particularly the work that SOS have done before now there's a new million pound scheme launching in that I think we're scratching at the surface but my one request within all of that and I presume the committee review the draft budget each year from a rural economy point of view there's six million pounds in food industry development budget now we're pretty happy with that because it didn't used to be a budget five six seven years ago for food and drink industry development we would really value the committee looking at that because there is lots of investment going in from lots of different places but that core fund there that sits in the food and drink policy in Scottish government we need we need greater resource in there because that's what can drive more work in a home market in particular and more work in the supply chain development and the moment it's six million you know there's a 30 billion pound ambition and I think more resource within there which would be even a doubling of that was is tiny in the grand scheme of things could make a big difference tackling some of the priorities we've talked about particularly around supply chain. Does one other person, Scott, if you'd like to comment on that? Yeah well a concern I have to go on going forward is we've got a huge ambition here to double the value of the food and drink industry in Scotland but that's all based on there being actual agriculture production so if we don't have agriculture production it's going to be very very difficult to double the value of the entire industry so I would ask you that we've got powers coming back to Scotland by developing our own agriculture policy what we've got to do is have a look at that agriculture policy we develop here is focused on on night put is actually focused on producing more on our farms so we can achieve the ambition which is in the strategy. Okay and just to sum that up if I may with a final question which is my question of it is Scott has talked about increasing production, Scott Walker has talked about increasing production, James Weathers has talked about doubling turnover more pounds which comes actually from the bottom line I think that Scott Walker has made his more product is required which needs to be sustainable which which has also been mentioned the problem is is it appears that industry seems to be hamstrung in the sense that agricultural output not only on beef on cereal production and lamb production or sheep production has virtually flat lined in the last 10 years you Scott have talked about the fact that you are struggling to get any expansion to your industry but there's the market out there for it I would like one suggestion from each of the producing areas that how we're going to get more product to allow us to develop the huge turnover that you're suggesting is capable. Scott if you want to start my left to your right. Specifically for my sector it's about getting the planning and licensing process streamlined we're on that journey now I'm quite hopeful but it's taking time but you know Scottish Government Marine Scotland and SEPA are working closely with us and if we can get that and we get to the right locations and control our biological challenges we will get our production to the level that will double the value. Yeah I mean mine would be quite simple incentivise innovation at a farm level particularly a farm level I'm interested in but incentivise innovation along with collaboration at the same time and I think you know farming can respond to all these change drivers but generally we need to put the incentive in place to encourage that kind of behaviour. Okay David do you have a? Yeah Brexit and and the is going to mean that government's going to have to pay attention to food much more than it's ever done and so actually what James has says has been built up over the past 10 years is soft and fluffy will not be soft and fluffy anymore it will be very much about how we produce food and how we manage regulations and trading arrangements and all those sorts of things going forward so government needs to be resourced in order to deliver on that. Patrick? Protecting the wildcatching sector going forward and providing appropriate support to the processing sector to maximise that opportunity. James? I suppose the comments or colleagues have talked about increasing production and increasing supply we need to keep increasing demand so market development activity in international markets and in the home market and a big part of the growth will come from premiumisation it won't be value as well as just volume so developing the brand and in those markets will be a key part of the growth piece. Ultimately it's very simple at the farmer end they need a price signal they need better prices we need the supply chain to develop fair pricing throughout and that's what Scotland Food and Rights here to do build that trust and develop better pricing throughout the supply chain. Thank you that's been a long session but it's extremely worthwhile I'd like to thank you all for coming in if anyone feels that we've missed out on something I'm afraid I don't have the time or the luxury to give you the chance to contribute now but you can of course write to the committee clerks and that will be passed on so thank you very much for your time this morning and I'd briefly like to suspend the meeting to allow the witnesses to leave. Thank you we'll now reconvene the meeting and move on to agenda item 3 subordinate legislation this is the consideration of a negative instrument as detailed on the agenda member should note that there have been no motions to annul being received in relations to this instrument and no representations to the committee on them are there any comments from members is the committee therefore agreed it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to these instruments that is agreed that concludes today's committee business thank you