 Y ddigitalion gyda'r ysgrifennu i gynnig y Cyflawn Gweithio 2016 i ddim yn Cymysgol Llywodraeth i'r Byd crasie na d chin, chi'n fighio'r hanfod o'r rhan o'i gynllun i'r gynllun, werthwyr i'n ddigitalion gyda'r chyrsledd ac yn ddigitalion gyda'r gyrsledd, ryw bryd o'r pryd yn glyfodd hynny, ond ryw bryd o'r cyflawno'r gynllun, sef ddigitalion i'm ddigitalion gyda'r cyflawn o'r cyflawniaeth, o'r ddiogelwyd. We have apologies today from Maurice Golden, we have been joined by Peter Chapman MSP, who are welcome to the meeting. Moving to agenda item 1, which is the decision on taking business in private. So, what we are to consider is taking item 4 in private it Curate? Agenda item 2, declaration of interests. The second item is to invite Alexander Burnet to declare any interests he may have that are relevant to the work of the committee and I invite Alexander Burnet to declare his interests. Thank you convener. I'd like to make a declaration of my registrable interests. I own and manage property, including agricultural, residential and commercial lettings, recreational and y pethau digon ystyried cyllideg. I also ensurez yn y Rheniwbill Ynrygyrch ymlaen ei ffarnedd ac oed rydych chi'n cymennu i gymryd yn cymrydau â'i pethau. Thank you very much and welcome to the committee. We've also as I said been joined by Peter Chapman this morning and I offered Peter Chapman the opportunity to also declare any interest that he may have. Thank you convener I'm a partner in Pee Chapman and Coal ye which is a farm and business I'm also a director of Redbog renewables, which is a business that has wind turbines. I'm a member of NFUS. I'm a director of Aberdeen North and March Group, and it's all in the appropriate register. Okay, thank you very much, and welcome to today's meeting. The third, sorry. So, convener, I checked with the clerks before the meeting started, and just for clarification, since the last meeting, I have been made deputy convener of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee, so I just wanted to put that on the record. Okay, thank you. Well, that's on the record. Okay, moving to agenda item 3, which is to take evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform. I welcome the Cabinet Secretary and her officials. In addition to Ms Cunningham, we have John Ireland, deputy director of low-carbon economy vision, and Keith Connell, deputy director of natural resources for the Scottish Government. At the outset, I have to say that we have a great deal of ground to cover, and we may not be possible to deal with everything in detail, so we may well write to you, Cabinet Secretary, seeking further detail, or indeed with fresh questions that we haven't reached today. Similarly, please do feel free to indicate in the course of the evidence session whether there are areas that you would feel the need to perhaps write back to yourself. So, kicking off, Cabinet Secretary, I think that, since we extended the invitation to meet with us today, there have been rather significant developments in the shape of the EU referendum result, which threaten to have considerable effect on your portfolio. I think that even a cursory glance at your enormous remit suggests that a few other portfolios are potentially going to be as impacted upon. Climate change, emissions targets, delivery, EU burden, habitat directives, possible infraction proceedings, SRDP funding for environmental schemes, MPAs, beavers—those are just some of the things that spring to mind. Perhaps could you outline at the outset, if only to avoid the implications of the referendum outcome, possibly dominating all the questions that are to come, how the Government is assessing or will assess the potential effect of Brexit on your areas of responsibility and to what extent these might impact on the Government's legislative programme? Yes, indeed. I think that the last week puts everything in this portfolio into a slightly different light, because this portfolio and possibly the rural economy portfolio are the two most heavily impacted by the EU in every way. That, therefore, means that just about every aspect of what we do would have to be seen against that backdrop now. However, our starting point here has basically got to be that the best way of solving anything other than very local environmental issues is for co-operation across national boundaries and that solutions need to be developed across a common framework. Whatever shape that forms, it does not change that fundamental necessity. The European Union has been the mechanism by which that has been done. It has provided strategic policy direction for environmental measures, and for many of the laws passed by this Parliament, those laws protecting the environment have been within the framework of EU legislation. Last week's referendum does not change the force of our domestic law in which regulation and protection are embedded, so that is not going to change. Our regulatory bodies will continue to regulate and protect us. CEPA, SNH and so on will continue to do what they need to do in order to effect the outcomes that we consider to be necessary. As a Cabinet Secretary, I will continue to work across Government to take forward important policy and legislation that gives effect to that. I suppose that we are in the very early stages of having to try and map through all of the different impacts in the very different policy areas that there are. To try and assess how quickly some of the impacts might be felt. That is a big unknown for us. For example, convener, you mentioned the issue of the SRDP, the structural funds, the enormous extent to which organisations and our environment benefit from money directly coming from the EU. We just do not know what the future of that now is going to be. There are certain uncertainties that are for us at the moment not easy to calculate. However, understanding our exposure is going to be important. That is work that we will have to do across not just my portfolio but across Government. Of course, we remain within the EU. Therefore, the EU rules continue to apply. We have EU obligations that continue to apply. We cannot simply behave now as if they do not exist because we remain within the EU. The timescale for that is uncertain and looks like it may continue to be uncertain for quite a while. I cannot pre-empt what the First Minister is going to say in her statement this afternoon. I know that there is a debate in the chamber this afternoon, so a lot of those general issues will probably come up. However, we have to look at the focus as being twofold. We have to govern competently and continue to do so. Secondly, we have to protect Scotland's interests in our place in the EU. That is something for Government as a whole, but it is also something for each Cabinet Secretary within their portfolios to consider. We are in uncharted territory. A lot of questions we are not going to have answers to. That may, I regret, have to be my response this morning that there are questions that I simply cannot answer. I would give you this reassurance that we are going to be doing our absolute utmost to protect our position as climate change leader, to continue to play the role that we have been playing in contributing to EU-wide environment policy, to make sure that we are maintaining, protecting and advancing our own environment. I think that we can get through this, but to pretend that it is going to be simple and straightforward would be to mislead everybody. Dave Stewart would like to come in with a quick question. I agree with the Cabinet Secretary when she states that we are in uncharted territory here. Clearly, we do know some information. We know that the article 50, when it is put forward, can only be put forward by the member state that is leaving. Apart from Greenland, no other country has ever left the EU, and we do know that there is a two-year timetable to negotiate during that period. In my experience, if you look at countries like Canada, getting trade deals done within a two-year period is extremely difficult. Do you have feel worries about the timetable once it is lodged with the European President? At the moment, I would have to say that, along with everybody else, my concerns are about what the timetable is actually going to be. I have heard one prominent individual stating categorically that they thought 1 January 2019 was the clear date for actually leaving, i.e. article 50 being triggered as 1 January 2017. I am now listening to radio reports of other views that would suggest that article 50 could somehow not trigger it until around about 2020, or thereabouts. Yes, convener, you obviously did not have time to hear Jeremy Hunt on the radio this morning. The former position was Liam Fox. I think that the difficulty is at the moment that there is absolutely nothing that we can assess with certainty. Obviously, if article 50 is triggered, we are talking about somewhere in the foreseeable future, we are looking at a very different set of circumstances compared to a situation where they might be talking about triggering article 50, not until 2020. Those two scenarios present us with utterly and completely different ways of proceeding. At the moment, the difficulty that that presents is quite significant. With respect to trade agreements, that is not my portfolio. I would imagine that there are significant issues with trade agreements, but I suspect that there is a great deal more than just trade agreements. Thank you, cabinet secretary. Just to wrap this part of it up. Yes, absolutely. It is understandable what you are talking about, requiring time to map this through, but could I ask for an undertaking on behalf of the committee that is that mapping through, that figuring out the impact on your portfolio takes place, that you and your officials will undertake to keep us appraised of the progress and the information that is going through that? Because it might well be that we as a committee feel it appropriate to explore some of these issues ourselves. I am happy to keep the committee up to date with our thinking as it proceeds. None of us will have a monopoly on wisdom in this respect. We will move on to the general areas of the question. We will start with climate change at Mark Ruskell. I have just had a brief follow-up question in relation to Brexit. We woke up on Friday morning to see the price of the pound dropping against the dollar. Are you for managing to get some sleep to wake up from? I am afraid I did not. An hour or two, I think an hour or two it was. We also saw that the carbon price across Europe dip considerably. I think it dropped by 15% on Friday morning. That obviously impacts on the ability of the EU emissions trading scheme to continue to cut carbon from major emitters across Europe. What consideration can you give right now to Scotland's continuation either within the EU ETS going forward, which of course will have an impact on Scotland's climate target, or indeed other options, which may be having a separate scheme or carbon tax or whatever? That is a question that is probably too soon for us to really be able to answer. It is nevertheless something that we will have to look at very, very carefully, particularly given this coming year, particularly given the manifesto commitment from the Climate Change Act. There is a whole set of new conversations that really arise out of that. I noticed in the by-going that the rapporteur on the EU trading scheme, Ian Duncan MEP, has stepped down from his position. There now is not anybody doing that job either. I suspect right now that those answers are not available anywhere. That is the kind of thing that we will come back to the committee on when we have a better handle on how that might impact on what we are doing. As you said, it plays into the forthcoming climate bill. Can I then turn to that climate bill? We have an existing action plan on climate change. We have a new action plan that will be developed, presumably with stakeholders and with the newly reconvened cabinet sub-committee on climate change, hopefully involving all Government ministers, so we have policy coherency across all directorates within the Scottish Government. What is the timescale for that? What is going to come first? The action plan or the target? Obviously, we are in a great position now in Scotland to go beyond the targets that we have. I know that that is the aspiration of the Scottish Government. We have areas that we can work on, particularly around transport and housing, where we can make substantial progress. What is the timescale? It is an issue that, as a committee, we are particularly interested in, convener, around how do we scrutinise this coming forward clearly as an action plan, a set of actions and a target? How do the two dovetail together and what can we expect in terms of timescales there? I cannot speak to a timescale for legislation. That is something that the First Minister will make clear when she delivers a programme for Government, and I cannot pre-empt any decisions that she might take about when that legislation may take place. There is a commitment to legislate. I think that, from my perspective, we simply have to proceed with the actions that flow from the existing climate change legislation, and we have to press ahead with those in the immediate and foreseeable future. That is what we are intending to do. I am opening up discussions and conversations of the Committee on Climate Change already. That is how we will inform ourselves as to what it is that we choose to do, but we are going to do that on the timescales that are laid down by the previous climate change act, rather than try and pre-empt what might or might not happen in terms of a future climate change act, which, as I said at this stage, I cannot actually say the timescale for. We have got RPP3, obviously. We have made a commitment that that will be laid by December 2016, although that is what we are working on so far. You will see that quite soon. That draft, as I said, will come before Parliament and the committee in December. There is a very specific bit of the timetable that is locked into place, although we will keep that under review, because some of the issues that we are already discussing this morning might begin to impact on some of the things that that has to look at. As I indicated, we are already in conversation with the UK Committee on Climate Change as to how we might proceed on that basis. We are looking to begin to look at the changing targets, again arising out of the existing climate change bill. The idea is that somewhere around about the autumn we will begin to have some concrete thinking around that. At that point, the committee would be likely to be involved in those. That is slightly different. You have probably got two timescales there. You have got the changing of the intramanial targets, which would probably be about autumn, and then the RPP3 draft by winter, December at the moment, but as I said, we will keep that under review, and then a climate change bill sometime further down the line. That is how we are working at the moment. In terms of the scope of the bill as well, globally scientists are telling us that we need to keep four-fifths of our known fossil fuel reserves in the ground. We have obviously got a whole range of currently uncharacterised resources, including shell gas in the UK, which could cause quite a significant impact in terms of climate change if we were to exploit them. Will the bill be dealing with any of these issues? The draft is yet to come. At the moment, the scope and extent of the bill is not yet clear. From the perspective of where we were, the principal driver was to raise the intram target. That probably helps an understanding of a broader timescale because the intram target is to be hit by 2020. We have to raise that in reasonable time, but the extent and detail of the bill has not yet been finalised. Will the RPP examine and look at the actions that will be needed, for example, to restrict shell gas in Scotland if the Scottish Government's research into shell gas will show? I really do not want to get drawn into a debate about frackings, since that is not in my portfolio remit. Clearly, there will be consideration of all of these things throughout RPP 3 and throughout the legislation as well. Right. OK. Good morning, Cabinet Secretary. Could I just ask you, as a follow-up question, in relation to the climate change bill and the RPP 3, how they dovetail together? If the climate change bill introduces any significant changes in terms of our emissions reduction targets, would it be that we would have to look at the RPP 3 again if it has already been sewn together? We have an obligation under the existing legislation to do RPP 3 within the more immediate timescale. We are not going to not fulfil that obligation because we have promised another climate change act. RPP 3 will go through. There will then be climate change legislation. Might that mean some reconsideration of the decisions that were taken the way the RPP 3 is dealt with? I cannot rule that out, but I do not want to. The obvious logic there would not be to do RPP 3 until we are legislated. I do not think that anybody would want that to happen either. The only way we can do is to proceed as if this other legislation was not happening. Just fulfill our obligations and then the climate change legislation will be an opportunity to reconsider how we think that might work. If that means making some changes, that is how we have to live with it. It is the right thing to do to have the climate change legislation, but it is also the right thing to do to fulfil our obligations under the existing act. Can I ask you if you are considering any specific steps to address emissions in sectors such as transport where they have fallen least? That is going to be one of the things that the Cabinet Sub-Committee will need to discuss. Obviously, I am responsible for setting the overall policy, but then there are other portfolios that will have to carry all that out. That discussion is one of the discussions that we will need to take. In fact, I have already had a brief conversation with the transport minister about the sectoral issues that arise out of our recent targets. You can rest assured that I am conscious of the vastly different contributions that different sectors are making to our progress. That is reassuring. Also reassuring, if I may say so, is the fact that the sub-committee is reconvened. Can I ask you, having been on the public sector climate leaders forum, what the plans are to support the public sector going forward in relation to climate change and also the wider question of the support across society for behaviour change? Obviously, behaviour change across society is pretty key to making real progress. Some of the sectoral areas in which we have made a great deal of progress are probably because of the cumulative effect of a lot of relatively small changes. It is an argument that has always been made. It does not rule out the necessity to make some bigger changes, but bringing people along is fundamental to all of that. We continue to engage across the board on that. People may remember the campaigning to get people to switch down their central heating and all the rest of it, which of course had the twin effect of saving the money as well as reducing emissions. We have to continue to work at that level. Some of the areas that we will need to make some real progress in might be harder. I am not going to run away from the challenge of persuading people that they should not be having just constant and immediate resort to their cars. That is a harder argument to make with individuals who are very keen on the broad approach but less keen when it actually comes to them personally. There are areas in which I suspect that the message might be a little bit more difficult to get across, but we must get it across. That will be part of what we take going forward. Obviously, public sector action on climate change is driven by public duties that were laid down in the 2009 act. That is all of the things like mandatory reporting, which is part of it. The support that is needed in order to do that across public bodies. We support a raft of other services as well, from which the public sector can access support and advice. Members will be aware of organisations like Energy Savings Trust, etc. Those are the ones that are put in place to help. It is the responsibility of the whole of the public sector to take effective action. I think that what we have done now is to ask the Scottish leader forum to take oversight on climate change action in the public sector. We are not taking our eye off that ball. Obviously, in some of the sectoral areas that we need to make further progress, there is a huge issue for the private sector as well, which takes a deal of engagement and has to be worked through very carefully. If I may be permitted one reference to the current scenario, we now find ourselves in. Of course, the uncertainty that is out there across business and the private sector will be something that we have to work with when we are trying to persuade them of some of the actions that we want them to take in this regard as well. Thank you very much. Moving on to look at the circular economy Angus MacDonald. Okay, thanks, convener. Good morning, Cabinet Secretary. In the previous session, the former RACI committee did some work on the circular economy. Of course, the SNP manifesto details proposals to include a circular economy and zero waste bill. Can you give the committee some detail on what you plan to include in the bill and when you plan to bring forward further details regarding the legislative proposals? Well, my default position on legislative proposals will be that it's not my decision, it's the First Minister's decision and I can't pre-empt the First Minister other than to obviously remind the committee that there is a commitment to have legislation in this regard. I have officials who are currently working on aspects of the circular economy in any case because there are other initiatives that relate to this and there are questions about what might or might not appear in a piece of legislation. There are a number of things that, in theory, could but whether or not you would necessarily want to move straight to legislation in some of them is another question. We've got to make a judgment call on that in terms of balancing what we want to continue to do on a partnership basis and what we think we need to move to legislate on. There haven't been any final decisions. OK, thanks. Taking that response on board, could I maybe turn to deposit return schemes? Yes. The committee has indicated an early interest in the session in deposit return schemes and I was pleased to host in the previous session just before Parliament was dissolved around table discussion on the issue and I've seen at first hand the progress of such schemes in Norway and other Nordic nations since the mid-80s and I've followed its progress over the past three decades. I think it's fair to say that we're a wee bit behind when it comes to deposit return schemes. I'm aware of strong lobbying on both sides of the argument so I was curious as to what plans the Scottish Government have to consider the introduction of deposit return schemes and what are the challenges and opportunities to roll out such schemes in Scotland. We will be continuing to explore this area as you've flagged up. There is by no means unanimity out there as to whether or not schemes such as these would be practical and proportionate but it is an area that we want to continue to consider. In that sense I will be picking up where the previous cabinet secretary left off. At present Zero Waste Scotland are exploring the issues around that and there were a number of things raised in the call for evidence last year so that we do have to work through some of these areas so that we can fully understand the issues around the various schemes and we do take on board that they are commonplace elsewhere. Some of the solutions arguably have already been found. We also have to keep in mind the challenges that might be faced particularly by smaller retailers in all of this so that any consideration of such schemes would need to take all of that into account. At present the discussions continue. No scheme has been proposed but nothing has yet been rolled out. Will there be any consideration of waste prevention or re-use targets or a new circular economy metric that is applicable to councils because as well know that just recycling targets do not tell the whole picture? One of the key issues arising out of the last bit of conversation is that local authorities will have a very singular role in all of what we do. I think that as everybody knows we have been pushing our household recycling charter. The Voluntary Initiative goes back to what I said about whether or not everything has to be legislated for how far can we take things on a voluntary basis. That is working through the system at the moment. Recycling rates can be improved hugely by making it a lot easier for people to recycle. I have some specific concerns that I have flagged up in the past that a lot of the recycling stuff will... All the waste banks and the community recycling presupposes folk have got cars in which to put their waste to drive it to the central depots. There are issues around how that is managed that we can do better than we currently do. I am sure that there are all sorts of examples around this table of other issues that arise. We are trying to move forward with as much agreement as possible to try and it goes back to the engagement that Claudia Beamish mentioned. The need to bring people along with us in all of this. We are intending to bring in a food waste target that will again impact on not just businesses but households. All of this takes a great deal of discussion, thought and careful consideration. I would expect the committee to be involved in all of that. We are jumping about, but there are some important areas that we need to cover. Can we touch on the situation with the Crown Estate? Can you update us on where we are at in terms of the transfer scheme and perhaps looking to the longer term because there is a process to be gone through here? For example, can we, as a committee, expect to see secondary legislation coming before us before too long? In fact, there is some movement already. I think that we are on the verge of moving forward with the necessary subordinate legislation to set in place the landing pad for the initial devolution. The difficulty with all of this is that we want to have a longer-term consultation about what shape the Crown Estate will take once it is devolved, but the devolution will take place before 1 April 2017. There has to be a place for the initial responsibility to land. That requires us to have a shorter consultation around that interim body to allow that initial devolution to take place. The plan is then that we have space and time to have the longer consultation to allow us to then develop within Scotland the shape that the new Crown Estate will take. Can I ask what accounts are being taken of the fact? That is quite an unsettling process for the staff of the Crown Estate, a very valuable staff. Has there been dialogue with them? Are they kept up-to-date about how this is all going to shake down? Yes, we are conscious that the existing staff might be feeling very insecure about this, so we are taking steps to reassure them about the steps that we are taking, how this process will play out, what the potential timescales are. My understanding is that the staff are up for the challenge. It might be challenging for them, but it is also exciting for them because it gives them a whole new way to look at things. I do not think that we want to minimise the fact that many of them may welcome this development and be looking forward to the conversation about what the Crown Estate will look like in Scotland once the longer-term decisions have been made. I look into those longer-term decisions and the implications that Dave Stewart wants to come in. You are right to say that this is an exciting devolution, particularly for the island authorities. I have had quite extensive discussions with the conveners on three island authorities, and it is fair to say that they are enthusiastic about islands and our future. Will there be specific consultation for the island authorities around the devolution of the Crown Estates? There will be consultees, clearly, because no final decisions have been made about the shape that conversation has got to be had. I am conscious that in different parts of Scotland there might be different views about how it might look. We need to allow space for all those voices to be heard and not rush it, which I think is quite important as well. We have a job to do in the short term, and we are tied to a Westminster timetable for this shorter term for the legal devolution to take place. We have to get through that process. I guess that what I would quite like is if people accept that this interim solution has just got to be dealt with in a relatively speedy way from our perspective, and it is dictated by a Westminster timetable. Then we have the bigger, better and longer consultation, which will allow all the voices to be heard in respect of how the Crown Estate will look in the rest of Scotland. I will be meeting with the stakeholder advisory group during the summer, and we will take that forward on that. I suppose that there might be statutory instruments that will begin to appear at the committee over the next period. Keith would not quite be sure about that, but anything that appears in the next year will probably relate to the interim process. It would be relevant to the longer term process. I move on to flood prevention. Dave Stewart has some questions about that. Thank you, convener. Clearly flooding is a vitally important issue, and I am concerned as a byproduct of climate change. What lessons have any of the Government learned from the flooding that occurred in both December and January? Is there issues that the Government is raising its strategy following? Yes. Whenever serious flood events do occur, what is vital is that they are investigated, and lessons are learned in order to provide us with information about future flood mitigation measures, particularly for those particular areas. I think that it was reassuring that the flood defences did stand up to the tests in December, early January, and that the national flood risk assessment, published in 2010-2011, had correctly identified the majority areas that were vulnerable. That is part of the process, which is that we can do the best forecasting we can in terms of identifying vulnerable areas, but, as time goes by, sometimes areas that had not been previously foreseen as vulnerable become vulnerable, and that poses a big challenge for everybody. I know that some places were more severely affected than might have been anticipated, perhaps foreseen as being vulnerable. The extent of that vulnerability had not been understood, but that is part and parcel of what I have just said, that this is not an exact science because you are forecasting, and we can only do the best we can. There was an area in Dumfries and Galloway that flooded far more severely than perhaps had been foreseen, and the lessons from that have to be taken forward into everything that we do after that. Every time there is a severe flooding event, that goes into consideration of how we forecast for the future. I take the point that the Cabinet Secretary is not responsible for house building and for planning. In terms of corporate planning, there is building currently on floodplains in Scotland. You may be aware of a petition that came in the last session, which argued that if there is flooding on housing development in the floodplain, then the local authority may be liable as well as the house builder. In fairness, the petitions committee did not resolve the legalities of that point. The point that I am making is that if there is building on floodplains, clearly that causes huge issues for potential damage. It seems that my own patch in the Venice where a whole estate was flooded partly because it was a floodplain and there was not sufficient flood prevention measures integrated. Have you had discussions with your ministerial colleagues who are responsible for planning about this very issue? Not that very specific issue, but I am having considerable numbers of discussions with many of my colleagues across a range of issues, and this will be one that I will discuss with the planning minister. Of course, the irony is that huge parts of urban Scotland are indeed built on floodplains because they were built on floodplains 1,000 years ago, and we have just stayed where we are. We have had to learn to deal with that. Going forward, yes, you need to look at future developments. I can understand the other side of the argument, of course, is that the extent to which you then rule out of potential development all sorts of areas that would otherwise be necessary for house building, and we have a target for house building too. There are issues here about how you build in prevention and mitigation at the same time, and you have got to take a balanced view of all of that. The extent to which perhaps decisions have been made that have turned out not to be the best ones. Again, that will be part and parcel of the way we look at things going forward, and those are conversations that I will want to have. I was reading just before the committee that there are around 200,000 Scots who are at risk of flooding because of pluvial flooding, surface flooding in Scotland, around 2 million in the UK. Do you recognise the scale of the problem in terms of that figure? Of course I do, and my concern is that, as time goes past, that figure may increase simply because our understanding of what impacts are being made on the climate will become clear as well. Right across the board, this is something that has to be kept under consideration and must become part of our explanation of why some of the actions that we are taking in other regards are being taken. People have to marry the two. People have to understand that the consequences of not doing things in one area will potentially be problems in other areas. I am conscious that I am a convener. I recognise also the important role that farmers and land managers have in land prevention, for example in forestry, the development of flood banks. How important is mitigation? I think that land managers are probably themselves very well aware of the important role. I know simply from my own local circumstances that farmers are well accustomed to effectively providing fields for flooding when rivers rise. I am certain that other members are in that same position. They will know those areas that disappear under water when there are significant events. Working directly with rural land managers is extremely important. However, it is back to that conversation that we need to have both with them and with the surrounding communities about when they see something changing in terms of being preparing for these events, that they must not just see these as negative issues, that they have to actually look at the consequences of not doing it in the future. People often do not bring those two bits of the calculation together. I do not expect the minister to have an answer to the question, but she will recall my interest in the Met Office, who, as the cabinet secretary knows, has a system of high-density radar throughout Scotland. I know where we are going with this. There is a real problem with particular parts of Scotland, particularly Murray, which members will know, has a high risk of flooding. High-density radar predicts bag weather patterns. I know, when I have proved the way to this, that this is, of course, an issue for the Met Office. If we wrote to the cabinet secretary, because the cabinet secretary raised this again to the Met Office because clearly prevention is better than cure. I am very concerned that England has 100 per cent coverage in Scotland. I am picking up the reins after a five-year gap in this portfolio, and sadly some things have not changed. Thank you, cabinet secretary. Peter Chapman has got a brief supplementary. A brief supplementary, yes. Cabinet secretary, have you had any discussions with SEPA when you were speaking about farmers and managing the courses of rivers? There has been a considerable build-up of gravel banks over the years, and SEPA is very reluctant to allow farmers to remove these obstructions. They can create real problems, and the instructions themselves will create the issue that rivers overflow their banks, and therefore the flooding is made worse. SEPA are very reluctant to allow farmers to do some of this essential work on the water courses that flow through their land. I was about to say that that is another thing that has not changed farmers' desire for the ability to effectively dredge the rivers in their area. I am being advised by Keith, and he might want to say something about this, that after the recent events SEPA has in fact advised farmers that they can do so without seeking further advice, which is news to me. I understand that SEPA issued some guidance in relation to the recent flooding, and their door is always open. I think that they have had quite a constructive approach to engaging with farming community over the last few years. I think that, in fairness to SEPA, they have sometimes taken the view that there can be a simplistic notion that this will work when, in SEPA's view, that is not always necessarily the case, and that in some cases it can actually make things worse. It is not just the easy, straightforward solution that has been, because after all the events that we are now seeing are significantly greater than they would have been in the past, so that the notion that simply dredging will be enough is not necessarily the case. Emma Harper has a supplementary question about SEPA. I think that you have probably answered the question already, but it is just to clarify that areas that have been identified as potential vulnerable areas get Scottish Government funding, and there are other areas that are not previously identified that have been flooded recently, especially in my area of Dumfries and Galloway. Will the cabinet secretary agree that we need to review those areas that were not previously identified as flooding and incorporate them into the future? We keep those things under review all the time, and that is one of the difficulties, because while we can all have 2020 hindsight vision when it comes to looking to the future, we are all of us slightly imperfect in how we see things developing. We can only do the best that we can in terms of forecasting, and that forecasting is constantly under review, and it has to be, for exactly the reason that you are talking about. We have had communities, and I am glad that you are aware of them in Dumfries and Galloway, where one village in particular has been flooded three times in the last two years, and there is circumstantial evidence that that is down to clearfelling and changing land use roundabout. Is there any plans to bring forward some sort of funding to help those communities that are not being identified through CEPER or whatever? Just to give those communities some reassurance, because in the likes of Corsfair, we had 29 out of 32 houses flooded three times in a two-year period, and they are looking for some assurance that the Government appreciates that it is not all about economics. There is a huge social impact in rural communities that are not covered by the existing schemes. I have got every sympathy with communities that suffer repeat flooding. I have some of my own constituency as well, who unfortunately suffer repeat flooding too. I am aware that there has been bad impacts in a number of occasions over the last few years in the member's constituency. The legislation does not prevent a council undertaking works outwith a potentially vulnerable area. That is perhaps a potential answer to the previous question as well. There is an updated flood study that I understand being undertaken by the council, which might ultimately lead to a flood protection scheme for the village, but a case for that has to be made. That becomes an issue of balancing what will be interests that are not so keen with those that are. There will always be a continuing need to target resources at those areas, most at risk. We do not have a get-out-of-jail free card in respect of an unlimited amount of money to spend everywhere as and when. We are constantly looking at and revising those areas that are most at risk so that we can make sure that the bulk of the resources are targeted directly to those. My understanding of, for example, the recent round is that while there is a skewing towards those areas most at risk, that is not to say that there is not money that is available to all the other local authorities as well, even those ones without currently areas at risk. We are not cutting off funding from anywhere, but we are having to rebalance it to be fair. I think that Dumfries and Galloway Council will be getting funding for a number of flood protection schemes as part of the whole process. Perhaps the member will want to continue in direct communication with me on his specific constituency concerns. Mark Ruskell will take you up on that offer to complete this section. Very briefly and following on from that point, I am just wondering how discussions are progressing with COSLA on all those issues, because what I am seeing in local authorities is significant capacity issues in terms of staffing, inability perhaps to bring forward capital projects and a challenging settlement for local government as well in terms of its ability to enhance capital programmes to fill the gap that perhaps the Scottish Government is unable to fill. It is a challenging settlement for everybody, including the Scottish Government. We are in the business of trying to make those decisions about where the risk is greatest and take decisions accordingly. We have agreed with COSLA that funding of £42 million per year is to be available. The funding round that Emma Harper referred to is agreed with COSLA and that that distribution has been agreed with COSLA. That provides some source of capacity support and financial backing for what might need to be done. There are flood risk management strategies that are already published and the local authority plans are now published, as of last Wednesday, Thursday. Sorry, I thought that. In the events of last Thursday, they perhaps went unnoticed. If people had not actually picked up that they had been published, they might want to go and look at what has been decided in respect of their own local areas and take that on board. As I indicated, local authorities can allocate additional resources. I appreciate that. That then becomes a question of, what do you take it away from? I am afraid that the Scottish Government is in no different position if we are to allocate more resources to one area, something else has to give. Those are not easy decisions for anybody to make. We will move on to land reform. We are anticipating a raft of secondary legislation relating to the Land Reform Act. Does the Government as yet have a rough timetable of when the various aspects of this will come forward? Right. Basically, there are a couple of timetables that are mandated almost by the legislation. The Land Commission, for example, requires to be up and running by 1 April 2017. Sorry, I am looking in the wrong direction for officials. In order for that to be achieved, certain actions have got to be undertaken now. I expect that the committee can anticipate having to have conversations about the Land Commission in and around the autumn. That would not be an unfair prediction for you. That is one aspect. There is the rights and responsibility statement, which we want to pretty much dovetail with the Land Commission. We want to keep all of this roughly together. The conversations about that need to be thinking about that as well. Obviously, we are looking at the land use strategy at the same time. I would anticipate for the committee's workload that perhaps around about the autumn issues to do with land reform will begin to appear back on your agenda. In terms of the actual precise timetable and aspects of any bits of subordinate legislation, I cannot give you an exact answer to that, but you can work back from 1 April to begin to see how that might look. Some of it, and I am not sure if it is clear yet, I think that part 10 stuff will go to the other committee. That will go to the other committee, not this one. The rights and responsibility statement, the Land Commission and the Land Use Strategy will probably be both committees, but the agricultural holdings, etc., will be the other committee. I do not know if that helps a bit. Can I ask the plans for the consultation and the register of controlling interests? I think that is up and running, or it is about to start. When would you envisage that the register would be in place? The first action is going to be the consultation, which will be issued this summer, and I think that at this stage we are not committing to when the register finally would be in place. As the committee will recall, there are a number of quite complex legal issues associated with that register, but there was a clear commitment by the Government to commence a consultation in the summer, and that is in hand. Would it be fair, cabinet secretary, to speculate that perhaps two years from now we may still be dealing with the secondary legislation around the Land Reform Act? I do not think that you need to speculate. I think that that will probably be the case. That is useful to know. Alexander Burnett has a question that he wants to bring in around the commission. Thank you, convener. It is really about the process for appointing land commissioners. Just to ask if it will follow the public appointments process regulated by the commissioner for ethical standards in public life in Scotland, and in particular follow the principles in the code of practice for ministerial appointments to public bodies in Scotland. This is really just to ask the cabinet secretary to confirm the assurances that were given in stage 2 of a bill by the minister. I think that the process of beginning appointments is going to be quite soon. We need to get people in place so that when we get to the 1st of April it can be up and running and we would plan on populating the land commission by In order to have the commission up and running by April next year the commitment was to have commissioners appointed by the end of the calendar year this year. It is quite a tight timetable but we are on the verge of commencing that activity in the public domain to appoint commissioners by the end of the year. The detailed involvement of the committee in all of this we probably will not be able to confirm it until after the summer recess because we are going to have a lot of conversation with parliamentary officials about this as well. The question wasn't so much about the timing is would it follow the process set down by the commission of the ethical standards? Yes. My recollection is that the commitment at the time was that the Parliament would be involved in the scrutiny process not specifically the committee so that's something we need to clarify. I mean our initial conversations with parliamentary officials which is why I can't indicate timetable but I wouldn't be hugely surprised if that does then become a committee consideration. That's the logic of it but we're a little bit away from being able to give a precise timetable for that. But as soon as you're in a position to do that you would indicate to the committee. That would be welcome. Kate Forbes has a question. When will the right to buy provisions be consulted on and more importantly what kind of support is going to be given to communities who would like to exercise their new rights? Well, there's a number of regulations needing to be made prior to commencement of the parts detailing community right to buy and we're currently giving consideration as to the precise timings of this. For new members particularly when we pass the legislation doesn't necessarily trigger the implementation the implementation can sometimes take a good bit longer and often is driven by subordinate legislation so that process is still ongoing. We will at the same time however need to implement the right to buy regulations under the Community Empowerment Act. We need to remember that there's also the Community Empowerment Act at play now not just the Land Reform Act. Some consultations the Secretary of Legislation consultations on relating to part 3A of the Land Reform Scotland Act business about abandoned, neglected land etc and the proposals relating to the crofting community right to buy and these are coming out of the 2003 act. Those two consultations closed on 20 June again members would be forgiven for having overlooked some of these things we're currently collating and analysing the responses and considering the precise timings for the implementation of the new community right to buy brought in by the Community Empowerment Act as well. We will be providing guidance and support to communities. There's refreshed guidance gone out already and as we are conscious and I've had it raised with me directly by those involved in various communities that there is a big issue about resourcing capacity in communities to take these issues forward and it is something that we are looking at quite closely because the demands of right to buy particularly in areas where there are already existing community trusts or development trusts can be quite difficult for people to take on. That's good. Dave Stewart's got a very brief supplementary. Thank you, convener. The SNP manifesto talked about setting up Land Scotland, a new land agency. What's the timetable for setting this up and what will the impact be on organisations like SNH, Cepa and the Crown States? Land Scotland is effectively about Government land holdings. It was one of the things I asked a question about very early on when I was first given this job because my immediate response was to go and look at the manifesto and then I went to query it. I'm right in saying that that will be taken forward by the cabinet secretary for rural economy and is therefore likely to be going through the rural economy committee. Am I right, Keith? Yes. I think because the largest public land holding in Scotland is the national forestry state 640,000 hectares and the context of Scotland being proposed was partly in the context of the Government's intentions in relation to forestry. Then it's going to be taken forward by Mr Ewing. Effectively, that's a shorthand for saying that I've not had any immediate discussions with the various agencies about this because it's not to say that I won't have to because it is one of those areas that will have some impact on my portfolio. I'm not the primary driver of this stage in conversations about it and it will have a very separate remit from the Land Commission. I think that there might have been the danger of a confusion between the two but they are not at all the same. The Land Commission is about law policies and practices. The Land Scotland is a new land agency which is about management and that's a different thing entirely. Talking about possible confusion, Cabinet Secretary, there's a letter going to the Equal Opportunities and Human Rights Committee which meets on Thursday from Angela Constance, the Cabinet Secretary for Community, Social Security and Equalities in which it's indicated that oversight of land rights and the human rights dimension for land reform is why with Mr Ewing is that wrong or is it right? I haven't seen that letter. Land reform is in this portfolio. I am the Cabinet Secretary for Land Reform as is evidenced in the title. It's just that this is a human rights dimension. Perhaps you could write back to some clarity on that. Most aspects of every portfolio will impinge on other portfolios. There are no hard lines between portfolios. When it comes to, for example, the Scottish National Action Plan on human rights, it will refer to human rights to for example, among other things, right to housing, right to be able to have employment and land rights in a global sense are very much strongly part and part of that human rights picture. I can talk a little bit about that because when I was a previous justice minister I was doing the Scottish National Action Plan but the human rights aspect of it may lie with Angela Constance's portfolio. The actual policy in respect of land reform in Scotland is in this portfolio. I think there will be blurred and fuzzy lines between all portfolios and we just have to work through these issues as and when they arise. It's really just a question if you would lead on that. Our land reform, yes, me. Mark Ruskell has a question. There was a commitment given in the previous session to launch a consultation into attacks on derelict or vacant land. I just wanted to know where that consultation was at at the moment. Sorry, I don't know. We don't have information about that. Can we write to you about that? That's probably because it will be taking place in a different portfolio and that will get you a separate note about that. Okay. Okay. Why do you strategy on the physical environment Alexander Burnett? It's really just to ask. Obviously the land use strategy potentially groundbreaking approach and hopefully very positive. There wasn't any budget committed by the Scottish Government to its proper implementation. Could the cabinet secretary just confirm the full implementation of Scotland's land use strategy is a political priority and will be fully funded? I think the land use strategy was mentioned in the Government's manifesto pre-election. It is important. I've already referred to the land use strategy. We're taking that forward. Will it be always and everywhere fully funded by central Government alone? I think there are a number of agencies and ways in which aspects of that strategy will be taken forward in terms of financial resources. But it's not something to which we've allocated a large chunk of money which will then be spent specifically because a lot of the actions that you're looking at will be funded in different ways and by different streams. Okay, thanks. There will be some additional questions around this. We've got a lot of ground to cover. I want to move on and look at the marine environment and particularly MPAs and Kate Forbes is going to lead in this part. Two questions. First is the small Isles MPA, which was postponed in the last session. When will the MPA management measures be published for consultation for the small Isles? August. We intend it to last eight weeks so you can be looking out for it in the summer. We anticipate that SIs will be laid in Parliament in time for measures to take effect on 1 January 2017. Okay. In terms of the timetable for the second batch of MPAs and SAC management measures how are you going to ensure that all stakeholders are engaged and part of the process? We're in constant discussion with stakeholders about all of these issues, all related issues but there's a formal consultation planned for winter 2016 so that'll be a little bit further down the road. The magnitude of the response to the consultation will then determine the subsequent parliamentary timetable for statutory instruments but we anticipate that taking place ahead of summer recess 2017 or just after so the committee will have relevant SIs from the small Isles consultation by by January and well known in fact to take effect in January you'll probably get them before Christmas and then again you work back from the timetable for summer recess. One last one in terms of MPAs already in place how are we monitoring the success or otherwise of them particularly the impact on livelihoods? We don't have any initial findings at the moment it's all a bit too recent because the MPAs have really only taken effect this year and obviously official fisheries data takes a while to feed through for analysis there will be socio-economic monitoring that is something that we look at it's going to look at two different areas how the fishing industry is changing its activities in response to the MPAs and what the impact is on landings as a result and that means also looking at incomes and employment in coastal areas so we're currently gathering evidence on that and we hope to be able to report on that this year but in a sense this is all an on-going process you're consulting, you're introducing you're monitoring, you're looking at this and it's all a kind of rolling caravan really which is constantly under assessment and each one kind of informs how we handle the next one fair question because it predates your time but in the last Parliament the predecessor committee certainly took evidence that indicated there had been a degree of confusion from the discussions that had taken place between Marine Scotland and some of the stakeholders over MPAs whereby people came out of the room feeling that points they had made had been accepted taken on board and then it turned out in the final proposals they weren't accepting there may be wishful thinking at work here are you confident cabinet secretary that the way in which dialogue will take place and consultation will take place on that will avoid situations like that I would very much hope that situations like that can be avoided I suppose one can never rule out when humans are involved and people often hear what they want to hear on both sides really one of the issues around all of this is of course that for these designations we are required to look at the science not the socioeconomics but of course the communities that are affected by them want to look at the socioeconomics not just the science so there is always a bit of dynamic tension in all of this and what will be important is the analysis of the existing MPAs and the impacts that they've had that will be important going forward for any future discussions that are had but we are in a constant dialogue on these issues and probably will continue to be so okay thank you it might be just an offshoot from this but it just came to mind we have an issue with electrophishing legal electrophishing does that come under this remit to the environment where there's actually a potential damage to a species we have electrophishing of razor clams can I come back to you on this specific issue generally is this committee's remit to look at the protection of species in marine areas so that would come under this remit this committee can look at anything that relates to species protection environment etc that doesn't mean to say that there isn't another committee that will also be looking at perhaps from a slightly different angle thank you I found your responses in relation to MPAs having been on the previous rural affairs committee reassuring I'd just like to highlight the issue of obviously looking at what phishing effort is now but also what the environment environmental capacity can cope with for future generations of people who fish as well and I'd also just like to ask you whether that would be for now or in writing to give the committee some detail about the progress with the national marine plan and also the two pilot regional marine plans because of the implications for the environment in relation to the whole range of marine development in a sustainable context right not quite sure what you're asking me there I'm asking about the national marine plan I suppose I should re-froze it is that within our brief which I hope it is and the pilots that flow from it because it's environmental protection coming from the marine act 2010 yeah I confess that we've not really looked at this in detail and it may be that this is one that isn't entirely for us so can we perhaps right to you just on the back of this right thank you ok I'm dealing with biodiversity in my cross call yes thanks convener I think when the 2020 biodiversity route map came out it was widely heralded by stakeholders there seemed to be a lot of energy behind that drive to get biodiversity much more mainstreamed across public sector and different parts of our society but my sense is that some of the energy has gone out of that that route map the Scottish Biodiversity Committee hasn't met now for over a year so I wanted to ask you cabinet secretary how are you going to re-energise efforts to make progress in this important area this is SNH and the lead agency for this I know that we haven't as far and as fast as I think we've been anticipated that we might have done by now but one of the issues that arises here is sometimes the same tensions that arise in other aspects of things where you're balancing a lot of different rights and responsibilities and trying to take people forward with you as opposed to just simply imposing I think is for me quite important we are closely monitoring progress and SNH are key in that there are a lot of actions and a lot of work out there taking place and I think the first six-monthly report from SNH is due now has it been published? The first six-monthly report on the delivery of the route map has been published and we're expecting shortly the first report of the progress to meet the HE targets so there's a regular series of six-monthly reporting by SNH to the Scottish Government Just briefly, I didn't get a sense through the work of the Scottish Biodiversity Committee that there were massive tensions I mean what I got a sense of is that there's an opportunity for great synergies between health and environment and the economy and tourism and biodiversity I think what's been perhaps missing has been a minister chairing the committee, the minister previously chaired the committee but there was no meetings at all last year so it would be welcome Cabinet Secretary if you could consider perhaps convening the committee again and bringing stakeholders together I'm just being advised that there were some process issues over the last year perhaps there was a co-chairing rather than a single chair I'm sorry obviously because I've not been here The brief answer is that there was ministerial oversight of what's called the RAFE delivery board real affairs food and environment delivery board which was co-chaired by Mr Lockhead and Dr McLeod and biodiversity was reporting to it so although the Scottish Biodiversity Committee met there was ministerial oversight through the RAFE delivery board I mean we're obviously going to have to re-look at some of this now because we're in a different structure now so I mean it's one of the things that I'll be considering how we move forward with that the tensions I was referring to arise out some of the very specific things that fall within that broader biodiversity framework and I think the member will know what some of them might be I'll wear some opportunities as well but if you can write back that that would be good and we may have some supplementary questions around that as well to say into you I want to deal with wildlife crime and then do a wrap of a variety of small issues so Gail Forbes is going to read on that Gail Rose Thanks good afternoon cabinet secretary The Pustey review reported in November 2015 and it made 10 recommendations and some of these would involve legislative changes to widen the range of offences which would attract and increase maximum possible fine of £40,000 of what plans do the Scottish Government have to take forward the recommendations of the wildlife crimes penalties review group what plans do the Scottish Government have to carry out a wildlife crime prevention review and to set up a wildlife crime investigation unit and given that we contribute to the UK unit at Livingston would that continue if we set up one of our own Well the wildlife crime investigation unit there's already been initial discussions with Police Scotland on the issue but we haven't yet finalised details but it is something that is currently under active discussion we have in mind a dedicated new unit but obviously that's we have to have the conversation with Police Scotland because there's operational issues that would impact on them and it would be a small unit I don't want to mislead people into thinking that there's going to be a great new office building with hundreds of police officers in there and all the rest of it what's anticipated is a small unit and and it will be very much part of Police Scotland which I think is important we expect to be able to announce specific details on that come the autumn and certainly after the summer recess in respect of the wildlife crime penalties review group we've obviously made a pretty comprehensive response in respect of the recommendations which were wide ranging and some of the recommendations including the one about penalties would require primary legislation we have yet to identify an appropriate vehicle for that so the expectation is at some point in the lifetime of this Parliament there will be legislation around these issues and getting it into the right bill will be important there are other recommendations various other bits and pieces about alternative penalties impact statements and all the rest of it we will need to work through all of those in discussion with other parties in order to establish the next steps and whether or not some of these things would also require legislation or could be done in a different way what else did you ask me about sorry that's the review group and penalties the investigation unit all the Livingston unit well I mean obviously that's a conversation that we would have to have once we'd set up the investigation unit it's part and parcel of the conversation we're currently having the National Wildlife Crime Unit based at Livingston is co-funded with the UK Government and performs a different function to what's envisaged as the unit in Police Scotland it's primarily an intelligence collecting unit it's co-funded and at the moment the Scottish Government is committed to maintaining the funding of that joint unit I apologise to members there are some areas we're not going to cover today but we're going to wrap up with the Cabinet Secretary around timings really more than anything around the variety of things if you can provide some answers that be useful or write back to us the protection for wild mammals review what's the scope of that review and the rough timetable for its completion we expect Lord Bonomy to report somewhere in the autumn but of course as you'll know autumn can be anytime from September through to November so I can't be any more specific but instead of the recommendations he's already received something like 300 written submissions so it's quite big and I can't say but from the perspective of the committee you probably when the review is published you might want to have a look at it I'm saying autumn so perhaps you need to think about how to timetable that whether or not there ended up being legislation from that then you'd be looking for considerably further down the line okay thank you the Scottish Government has indicated an intention to take some action around the issue of wild animals and circuses it was very much a vague commitment to do it can you put any meat in the bones around that? it's not a vague commitment we are going to legislate to do it what I can't tell you is when Beaver's reintroduction of a decisions due before the end of the year under active consideration by me and I well I don't want to frighten the officials I would hope we're not waiting until the very end of the year to do it okay and the consultation into a tail docking exemption for working dogs and it has concluded is there any time scales around the decision on that? none yet at the moment committee members will need to consider that the extensive work that's involved the impacts on how you schedule your business similarly for Government officials has the same impact so we have to look at how officials manage what they have to manage and what kind of time scales they can do it in because in some of these cases it's the same set of officials that will be doing two or three different things and that just from our perspective creates can potentially create a log jam if we don't separate things out the tail docking consultation we're expecting to get a report on the analysis of the consultation responses in the autumn and then once we've seen that a decision will be made about what happens in the future so again that's something that you might be looking at in terms of your committee work okay thank you that's useful for the committee it's useful for the stakeholders out there who are obviously interested in the wide and varied issues and cabinet secretary can I thank you for your time today and for the assistance of your officials as agreed earlier the committee will now move into private session to discuss its work programme at the next meeting of the committee as the next meeting of the committee is to be agreed during this session details of future meetings of the committee will be published on the website and on the Twitter feed and I'll close the public part of the meeting and the committee will move into private session as agreed earlier