 Welcome to the first meeting of session 6 of the Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee. I am Ariane Burgess MSP for the Highlands and Islands and the oldest member of the committee, and I have the pleasure of convening this meeting for the first two items of business. No apologies have been received. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome all members, and I look forward to working with you on this committee. Before we move to the first item on the agenda, I would like to remind everyone present to switch mobile phones to silent. I have just done that myself. A reminder to members to wait for your name to be called before speaking to give time for broadcast colleagues to activate the microphones. Broadcast colleagues will mute microphones for those who are not speaking to keep ambient noise down and prevent distortion, so we are absolutely in good hands for this first meeting. The first agenda item is for each of us to declare any interests that we have relevant to the work of the committee. Background information is provided in the declaration of interest paper 1. I will ask each member in turn, in alphabetical order, to declare any interests or to say that you have no relevant interests to declare. I would like to begin with my committee colleague, Karen Adam. Good morning. I have no interests to declare. I have no particular interests to declare, but I would refer members to my register of interests. I get to go next, and I have no particular relevant interests to declare. I declare an interest in a farming and lighting business, and I am also a member of the National Farmers Union of Scotland. I am a member of the National Farmers Union of Scotland. Sorry, I did not catch that last bit. Other than that, I have no other registered interests. I have no interests to declare with regard to the committee, however, I would refer members to my register of interests. Good morning. Other than being an islander, I have no registered interests in the committee, but others would prefer to go to my register of interests. I live on an island, but, apart from that, I have no relevant interests to declare, however, I refer members to my register of interests. I have no relevant interests to declare. We are going to move on to agenda item number two, which is to choose our convener. The committee's next task is to choose a convener, and the procedure is explained in the choice of convener papers, paper number two. The Parliament has agreed that only members of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party are eligible for nomination as conveners of the committee. Can I invite a member of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party to nominate their candidate for convener? We are in the box. I would like to nominate Finlay Carson as convener. Do we agree to choose Finlay Carson as our convener? Please indicate any objections by typing R into the chat function. I see no objections to Finlay Carson as our convener for the Rural Affairs, Islands and Nature Natural Environment Committee. I welcome Finlay Carson to your appointment. I look forward to working with you in your role as convener. Thank you very much. I appreciate those kind words. I am absolutely delighted and honoured to be taking the role of convener of the committee. It has the unfortunate name of Rain, which is not quite as nice as the previous committee I served on, but I am quite sure that it will be a fascinating committee. We have a huge amount of work to do in an area that I know that all of you are particularly interested in. I look forward to working with you and the clerks and the vice over the next few months. We want to agenda item 3, which is the choice of deputy convener. The Parliament has agreed that only members of the Scottish Liberal Democrats are eligible for nomination as deputy convener of this committee. I understand that Liam McArthur is that party's nominee. Do we have any objections to Liam McArthur as our deputy convener? If you do so, please place R in the chat function. No, we have no objections, so I congratulate Liam McArthur on being the deputy convener of our committee and I look forward to working with him over the months. Now we move on to agenda item 4. It is a provisional discussion about the legacy papers produced by the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee and the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee at the end of session 5. Those papers summarise the committee's recommendation in relation to the ways of working based on the experience over the previous session and highlights work that we think that this committee may wish to focus on. I propose to invite members to highlight any aspects in the legacy papers that they consider particularly important for our future work programme. What I will do is I will call on members individually—I will not call on alphabetically, but I will probably start with those who have had experience on the committee before and I will call on Liam McArthur to make a comment on the committee's work programme. Liam McArthur. Thank you very much, convener, and thank you to the committee for letting me as the deputy convener. I consider that to be a real privilege. I look through the legacy papers of the relevant committees to the work of this committee in the previous session and it did not lack for options in terms of issues that I think will be under some pressure and expectation to be covering. It seems to me logical to continue the work in relation to the operation of the internal markets and the rural frameworks issues. Added to that, we have got the questions around future trade deals that are being pursued and which are given some consideration to, but it is an opportunity within the committee to drill down into that a bit. The good food nation, I am assuming that we will have a bill to deal with in due course, but it is whether we can squeeze out some time before legislation starts to flow forward to do a better pre-legislative consultation in some of the areas that the good food nation is likely to cover. Aquaculture, to me, seems to be something that we are going to have to revisit as well. From a more island's perspective, I would have a keen interest in us continuing to shine a light on issues around procurement. I know that there is a bit of dubiety about whether or not digital connectivity sits within our remit or perhaps in another committee's remit, but if we have any locus in that, that has demonstrated itself over the past 18 months to be an issue of almost existential importance to many island and rural communities. We could usefully turn our attention to that. On closing, I would flag up that it is not on the list. I know that the petitions committee is looking at a petition in relation to air traffic control service centralisation, but that cuts across interests of the committee as well. I think that we need to wait to see what the petitions committee seeks to do with that. It is part of their legacy paper, but if there is a way of following that up, it is appropriate. I am very supportive of that. I should have said in writing the outset that we recognise that there will be some outstanding questions about where our remit falls, whether there is crossover between net zero energy transport committee's remit, and I propose to write to the Scottish Government after this session just to have some clarity and advance of our business planning meeting. Please do not hesitate to bring forward topics that you think might be the remit of this committee, and we can certainly clarify that before we move forward. Can I now ask Alasdair to make a comment? In the papers that we have, as has been mentioned by Liam, there are obvious things in there, such as cop26 or cap, replacements for cap, trade deals and all those issues. I think that it is interesting that we have a committee with three people who live on islands, so I apologise if we have tried to do a takeover from time to time, but I would echo what Liam said about the fact that many of the issues that affect islands and perhaps other parts of the country are ultimately all about the population, so there will be some crossover between issues and I suppose possibly some negotiation to be done with other committees about where exactly our remit lies. For me, I think that an issue that is impossible to avoid if we are talking about the rural economy or the island economy is housing. I realise that we are not the housing committee, but it is an example of areas that we cannot avoid because we do not have an economy in some parts of the country if we do it anywhere for people to live. For me, I think that that would be the observations that I would make. We probably just need to clarify if we have opportunities to do more holistic cross-cutting looks at some of the economic issues that affect island areas and other areas that are affected by the population, which we in power can make these areas or we might need to negotiate with another committee about it. I absolutely agree. Although there may be three members who are islands in the truest sense coming from Galway and Western Fife, we often feel like we are an island as well. Housing is certainly an issue with us. There may also be some remit when it comes to the rural-based enterprise agencies, such as Highlands and Islands, and the South Scotland Enterprise Agency. We need to look at that as well. Rachael Hamilton, can I move on to you, please? Thank you, convener, and congratulations to both you and Liam McArthur. I am slightly unclear about where our remit will lie, but looking at some of the legacy papers I am very interested in pursuing the Food and Farming Future Policy agenda. It is very important that farmers know where they are going and that they have a direction. I think that our committee could very much be looking and scrutinising at what the Scottish Government is bringing forward, and that might lie quite nicely with post-EU legislative competence and other issues surrounding that landscape. Obviously, the big thing for us is going to be COP26, and I think that that is how we feed into that in terms of our remit in the committee. The responsibilities that will be expected of agriculture in Scotland do part of that net zero solution or part of their role that they play in reaching net zero, including emission targets. I think that it is also important that we look at the if it is our remit to look at the DEAR Act and DEAR and GRIS legislation. Obviously, there was a slight issue that BASC had raised with regards to the way that people in agriculture, rural workers, are being treated. I think that that is an important aspect that we should be looking at. One thing that interests me greatly was the review of the salmon farming inquiry. I was not part of the committee at that point, but I think that it would be worth looking at how progress has been made in terms of some of the voluntary code of conduct and other aspects that the committee raised previously. Another aspect that I think is going to be really important is marine biodiversity. I think that we should be looking at that. Finally, wildlife protection. I also think that it is very important that the point that Alasdalen raises about the island communities—again, I do not think that housing is really our remit, but it is about rural life and that takes into account some of the work that we did in the last committee with regard to the ferry inquiry and connectivity. There is a lot to go on, as you say, Finlay. I think that we have got our work cut out, but I am really looking forward to contributing to the committee and working with all the fabulous clerks that we heard from this morning. Thank you very much. Rachel, can you now move on to Arran, please? Thank you, convener. From the work of the Wreck Committee on Rural Economy and Connectivity, things stood out to me, of course everything. My colleagues have already said quite a lot of what I would agree with, but I will just emphasise a few things and pick up something. Absolutely, whatever form of food bill, good food nation or whatever comes forward, I think that is absolutely important. The salmon aquaculture, I would like to look at that again. I am quite concerned about the direction of travel there. As well as the inshore fisheries, I think that that is really an important piece of work that we need to look at, maybe some restoration of limits. As well, I would like to pick up crofting. I feel like there is some work that we could be doing there in terms of derelict crofts and supporting the work of the Crofting Commission to bring more land back into use where we have so many people who actually want to have and work crofts. Of course, there is always going to be climate change plans. I am keen to look at anything to do with climate change. In terms of the work of Eclair, I think that that was the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee. Things that stand out for me there is how we look at a green recovery and while responding to our twin emergencies of climate nature. I would also like to look at land reform because I think that that underpins so much. It is part of what underpins the housing issue that Alistair Allyn referred to. Of course, COP26 as well. I just want to say that I am not an islander. I would maybe love to be, but I do live ruraly. That is why I chose to be on this committee. I am on the local government, housing and planning committee. The reason that I asked to be the green spokesperson for these areas before getting on these committees was because at the heart for me is the issue around rural depopulation or repopulation and making sure that we have places for young people who want to stay and places for affordable housing for people who are coming to provide services—much needed services—to our rural community. For me, community is at heart and we need to make sure that it is people and land and the environment altogether. Thank you very much. Thank you for that and congratulations on your convenership. It is great to meet the rest of the group in this session. I would like to pursue the UK Internal Market Act, how that will affect farm funding. The Brexit implications on devolution and how that will affect the rural economy. The future rural policy, what that will look like. I absolutely agree that the farming community needs to have a degree of certainty. As you and I both know, farming is not about tomorrow or the day after. It is about a generation in front of us, so we need to get some kind of certainty on what that looks like. The good food nation bill, as it was, I would certainly like to see us looking at that again. Food is not just farming. I am interested in it, it is farming, it is food, it is the environment, it is the rural and the population, as Ariane was just talking about. All of those things to me are utterly connected. Women in agriculture is something that was looked at in the last session and I think that it is something that we should pursue further. The progress that we have made has been okay, but I think that we could make a hell of a lot more progress in encouraging more women to get involved in agriculture and actually running the businesses, because they are more than capable of doing it, as we have witnessed in numerous occasions over the past two or three years. In short, fisheries are vital. We have an absolute dual in the crown, and we really need to be protecting digital connectivity. We all know that the problems with digital connectivity are even in urban areas, let alone what it is like in the rural constituency. It is really like us to try and investigate how we bring together two disparate groups. Rachel talked about how the rural population feels as though they are not represented in this Parliament. I have written some support in support of the gamekeeping fraternity on Twitter and was immediately bombarded from the other side. I am saying the other side at this stage because we currently are two sides of an argument. I would like to find some way of bringing them together, because the two of them should not be mutually exclusive. There has got to be a way of making those two separate groups come together and work out what is the best way to protect the raptors, to protect their environment, but not at the expense of losing rural jobs, which are vital to stopping rural depopulation. There is a whole interlink of stuff going on there that I am keen to have a look at. Transport requirements. I live in Persia, but even we have transport problems in Persia, so it must be an absolute torture journey for people like yourself, then away from the deep borders or up in the highlands and islands. Housing, as I say, even in Persia we have rural housing problems, is something that we need to look at across the border. If that is not enough to be gone on, I am quite sure that there is more that we can find. Thank you very much, Jim. I appreciate that. Certainly there is a lot of food for thought, excuse the pun, but I think that just your contribution alone just gives us an indication of the remit that we have. Jenny Mental, welcome, Jenny. Can I ask you for your comments, please? Yes, thank you, Finlay. Congratulations on your convenership and also to Liam as well. I am really looking forward to working with everyone across the group and also the fantastic experts that the Parliament provides us with. Finlay, I would just say one thing. I actually think that RAIN is probably the most appropriate title for this committee, because without RAIN we would not have the wonderful green Scotland and blue Scotland that we actually have. Like everyone has said, this is a fantastic committee. It has such a wide remit. Just as I was reading the legacy papers, I represent Argyllin Bute, as you know, and I feel that Argyllin Bute takes so many of the boxes on it as does the rest of rural Scotland. I will not repeat what everybody else has said, but, like Alasdair, living on an island, I absolutely understand the housing, the de-population, the ferries, the connectivity. That is the same in rural, remote, Argyllin Bute as well and rural, remote Scotland. I think that there is some fantastic work that has already been done that we can grow on. We have talked a bit about food and the Scottish brand that is food. There is wonderful research done there. We are talking about absolutely great, really top products. Can we look at that across the rural economy for other industries, perhaps fabric and use it as well for tourism, so widen out the fantastic research that is being done there? What Ariane was talking about is that the one thing that I wrote down as well is communities, and we absolutely have to recognise the importance of our rural communities. We have to recognise the input that farmers, fishermen, crofters and aquaculture all put in, but we have to get the right balance with the environment, with all those organisations. I also cannot not say land reform as well. That is something that I think the community has to work. This group has to work very clearly together. Just finally, Ariane said it, and I just wrote it down as well. People in the land are in this together, and we need to get through it together. It is a huge remit. It is very exciting and loads of work, but I am very pleased to be part of it. One of the things that I picked up from the two legacy documents was how we gather the evidence and the lived experience. We have all got lived experience. We really need to make sure that we get out into our communities to ensure that we are gathering as widely as we can from people's lived experience and what they know about their communities. I am glad that you mentioned that. Kate Smith, who we briefly met in the briefing session from the participation and community team did a fantastic job for the clear committee in the last session, making sure that we did not just get the opinions of stakeholders or, if some people like to call it, opinion holders, but it was a broad selection of people who had various different opinions on the topic matter. I am looking forward to working with Kate Smith to ensure that we do exactly that and get a broad spectrum of opinions from right across our communities and stakeholders. Can I now move on to Karen Adam? Welcome, Karen. Much like my colleagues here, I am really excited and looking forward to being a part of this committee. I am representing a very coastal and rural community. I will definitely be interested in fishing and fisheries. It was Rachael Davies who picked up on marine biodiversity. One of the recommendations from the clear committee, which was really important, was looking at an integrated approach in regard to scrutiny. Having that holistic outlook towards that would be really helpful and beneficial moving forward with all aspects of marine biodiversity. I am particularly scrutinising the outcome of the post-EU exit negotiations between the UK, EU and other coastal states. Particularly its implications for sustainable fisheries in Scottish waters is really important. On engaging with debates on human rights, I am looking at the relevance to the environment on that and considering how our committees may be best to scrutinise any forthcoming human rights legislation. For the rural economy and connectivity committee, within that legacy report, what I really picked up on was—I think that Jim touched on this—the women in agriculture. Particularly looking at the work that the task force did and working on what they have already done and taking their suggestions forward and continuing with implementations of that digital connectivity transport, particularly Covid implications. The pandemic has had significant impacts on agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture. We need to be definitely looking at what we can do in regard to our recovery and making sure that we get big off in the right foot with that. Housing particularly has been brought up and I agree with that. Keeping a young workforce in the area is often brought up. If we can find ways, we are such a large remit, but everything is very much connected. Having that holistic approach towards transport, broadband connectivity and making sure that there are jobs for our young people and all parts of the committee and everything that I am really looking forward to getting stuck into. It is such a huge remit. It is hard to know where to start, but I am really looking forward to it. Thank you very much, Karen. Last but not least, I hope that I do not pronounce your surname wrong. It is great to be here this morning. It is a really exciting committee with a huge remit, seemingly endless and so much potential. I am really excited to be a part of it. I represent the north-east region, which I think others here represent constituencies in that region. Like so much of the rest of Scotland, it has an abundance of natural heritage. It is really beautiful but we struggle with infrastructure to make it a fantastic place for people to grow up in and stay. I see a lot of potential with this committee to look at what we can do to make rural and coastal areas of Scotland vibrant. We are looking at connectivity in terms of digital infrastructure as well as transport, which has already been mentioned. We are looking at jobs around food and agriculture and exploring workers' rights in those areas and supporting farmers and business owners to diversify and restore nature, which, hopefully, will elongate businesses anyway. There is huge scope. So much has already been mentioned, much of which I agree with. I am excited to get started. The key thing for me, as Arianne said, is looking at how we can move forward policies that benefit and work for nature, people and the land and having that holistic, integrated approach, which benefits all of that. I am going to make some comments, but if anybody would like to make a further contribution, if you put an R in the chat box, I will call you in and we can turn your mic on. The last 15 minutes have certainly given us a wake-up call about just how much work we have got to do. We could be the lead committee when it comes to Scottish Water, NatureScot, MarineScotland and deeper. In itself, there is quite a bit of work to do to ensure that they are working efficiently and scrutinising the work that they do. We have touched on aquaculture. That was a major report in the last session that both the Clare and the Rural Affairs Committee worked on, which had a huge amount of public interest. There may be a need for a look at the wild salmon population or the freshwater environment on a broader scale with non-native invasive species and so on, which is having an impact on our biodiversity, which, as we all know, is in crisis, along with the climate change crisis that we face. Some of the mitigation plans that the Government has at the moment will probably need to look at forestry planting to try to hit our net zero targets and what the implication on forestry planting is on our natural environment as a whole and peat restoration. We touched on the blue recovery, marine carbon, so not just freshwater environment but our seas around our coast and to look at what is happening to species decline and that goes hand in hand with our inshore fisheries, so possibly a bit of work to do there. Of course, as Jim touched on, we have past colony cap reform, but we are looking at rural payments and new rural policies and how that will tie in potentially with land use strategies, the local land use strategy and the new groups that have been set up to look at land groups and how farming and environmental issues can be taken forward on that. The on-going implications of Brexit, and I am glad that you touched on the Parliamentary Discuity, what our role is when it comes to the UK internal market and the animal welfare and food standards in future trade deals. A crofting crown estate, there is a huge amount of work in animal welfare. I think that some of the members of the previous committees, when they put the legacy papers together, must have had a good idea that they were not going to be coming back and serving on those committees because they have certainly given us a massive workload. I think that it is really important that the work that we do is communicated to everybody, not just inside the Parliament but into our communities to get as much engagement as possible. Certainly, the clear committee in the last session was particularly good at that. Ariana, can I bring you in again, please? Thank you, convener. Yes, we certainly have a lot. I just wanted to pick up because you brought forestry up and I want to pick something up because I think that we have a fantastic opportunity not only with looking at forestry in terms of carbon capture and biodiversity but also how can we grow trees, because forestry is a long-term vision as much as agriculture? How can we grow the trees and, therefore, the timber that we could be building houses in Scotland from? How can we grow trees that we can be making added value products? Where is the investment for added value fibre manufacturing plant or something like that in rural Scotland? Are there in the south or up by me? We could hangle over that, but I think that there are some tremendous opportunities to start to look at. As we move away from oil and gas and all the products that are made from oil and gas, we need to start thinking about how we make them out of things that we can grow in Scotland. I would love us to have a first look at that as well. I just want to come back in and underscore women and agriculture. I am right there. I really want to support looking into that. I have met some amazing women pioneers and I think that we need to do the work to open the doors and support more into the sector. I could agree with you more. I think that that could be built around the wider issue of succession planning when it comes to farming businesses. I was involved with the young farmers for many years and it was an issue a way back then, 30 or 40 years ago it must be now. Succession planning was an issue and we did not look specifically at women and agriculture, which I think was a failing back then, so there is quite a bit of work to be done to see how our future generations of farmers and the entrepreneurial behaviour in farming tend to come from the young people. Not always, I do not want to be ages, but we certainly need to pay due regard to how agriculture is going to develop over the short term and absolutely the long term. Rachel, can I bring you in, please? If we had no idea how we would be shaping what we would be taking forward, because Arianne makes the point there about specific aspects that she is interested in and we all have, indeed, this morning. However, if we look at the umbrella subjects such as the future of food and farming policy that, without a doubt, brings in procurement, and procurement is an issue that would be pursued through, for example, the good food bill, it would not necessarily take into account where stocks of timber are going and whether those could be used, indigenous timber could be used to make houses, but it is all part of the big procurement tent and I wondered if you had any idea as to when we might get a bit of direction as to how we take the subjects that we are interested in and our remit. Good question, Rachel. We have got a big task ahead of us, not just on the remit, but also tying that down. In the previous committees, the huge remit inevitably resulted in, in some areas, us only scratching the surface of the topics that we were engaged in and not scrutinising properly, so we have to be aware that there are some topics that we have to focus on more than others, but that will be part of the work programme meeting that we have, hopefully, at the end of August, just before we come back formally in the Parliament, and the clerks have put a lot of work to do to try and pull together some suggestions for the work plan for us to discuss it at that meeting. Again, we will need to clarify exactly what the remit is and where it crosses over with other committees. Jim? That is crossing my line, just when I was talking about forestry and we were talking about the perception of the rural community feeling as though they are left behind by the central bell Scottish Government, which I disagree with, but it is the conflicts that we have. I absolutely get that we have a need to tackle the climate emergency. Planting trees is definitely recognised as being one of them, but it is 18,000 hectares of trees per year in the right place, with the right kind of trees. That is probably more important than getting numbers. It is trying to bring the conflicts that we currently have and bring people together so that we can actually talk about it in a balanced way so that we can find the right solutions. There is something here for all of us to get a result out of. When I say a result, I mean something that everybody is happy with. We can continue to keep the rural population where they are and working and we can continue to hit our climate change targets. It does not have to always be in a conflict way. I would really like us to focus on how we bring those issues together so that we actually find proper solutions rather than just making it a political football. Absolutely. If you look back at the work that the clear committee and the rural affairs committee did, the committee worked very well together to look at how we came to the best solution. That involved compromise from each side, but we had very few votes and very few divisions within the committee. Our committee reports were very consensual, so I would like to think that, going forward, the evidence that we are able to gather from stakeholders will be able to work in a very joined-up manner to try to get the best policies, the best laws, best solutions for everybody. In some cases, that will involve compromise, but I am sure that we will be able to get to the best solutions. Unfortunately, only after 10 or 15 days today, we could probably talk for the next week about the remit and set an out what we think we need to achieve over the next few years. However, if the members agree, we will discuss the initial work programme at an informal business planning event towards the end of the summer recess. My preference would be to try and get the members into Parliament physically rather than virtually. Unfortunately, because of the Covid restrictions and where we are at the moment, we are going to be unable to have an away day, which is always a fantastic team-building opportunity, so we can speak to each other formally and informally and try to get to know each other a little bit better. We are not going to be able to do that before the Parliament reconvenes in September, but hopefully we can have a face-to-face business planning meeting sometime towards the end of August. If everyone is in agreement, the committee class will be in touch with members regarding the arrangements around that informal planning session and it will be organised to pay due to the guard to the restrictions that will be in place at that time. However, if there are no other comments, I would like to thank you all very much. Once again, I am absolutely looking forward to working with you all. What I believe will be the best committee in the Parliament, so not only do I have the best constituency, I have now got the best committee, I am delighted to go into the recess on that basis. Thank you all very much and I look forward to your hard work and I am getting to know all better when we have our next meeting. I bring this meeting to a close.