 Fyisiw果ch, amferio i gael i ddwyden schedule 20 o ddwygen gan y Mar皮nau Cymru, rwyf yn gysylltiadau iawn i gael i gael i gael eich gwneud mwy maesol yn unig mwy o gael. Mae arfer o gyfnodau cysylltu mwy o ddefnyddio y cysylltiadau yn byw o ffordd o Gliriannau. Yna, y cysylltu i gael i gael i gael i gael i fylwyr wrth著, yn ôl y stryb, Gall y bul deddiadau donuder mewn eich awde wedi dowifio i fynd ar weithgladau, rwy'n gweith monkey ent Seebu, Ikihew, drwy gwing aroweitiadau? Mae gwedig awdurdodai briddac chyrsmaeth, lleibus hwnraddiw, geiriadur a Llywain N dxirproductau aizableiydydd y Cynyddiad 180 ac mazgiblu ddiwyd yn creu â fees ddechrau! The instrument has been laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that Parliament must approve it before provision may come into force. Following this evidence session, the committee will be invited to consider the motion to approve the instrument under agenda item 3. I welcome the minister, Dr Eileen McLeod, for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform. Good morning, Eileen. Neil Ritchie, Environment, Quality Division Scottish Government. Good morning. Minister, do you wish to speak to the instrument? Yes, I do. Thank you very much, convener, and good morning. I'm pleased to be here today to support the committee's consideration of the Water Environment and Water Services Scotland Act 2003, Modification of Part 1 Regulations 2015. That instrument is primarily a technical one embedding the overarching requirements of three recent European directives, the priority substances directive 2013, the ground water directive 2014 and the biological monitoring directive 2014 into our primary legislation transposing the water framework directive. The requirements of the priority substances directive 2013 must be transposed by the 14 September this year. Although the ground water directive 2014 and biological monitoring directive 2014 are not required to be transposed until the summer of next year 2016, we are taking this opportunity to transpose the three directives together in the interests of simplifying the number of changes to our legislative framework. I can assure the committee that this early transposition of the 2016 requirements will have no adverse implications for Scottish interests, as those requirements essentially reflect the latest international-based practice in monitoring and assessment practices, and we are already applying those practices here in Scotland. The requirements of the priority substances directive are on a first reading, potentially more challenging, but the focus of the directive is a requirement for certain hazardous substances to be banned or phased out with the aim of significantly reducing their harmful effects on our freshwater and marine environments. The directive places a strong emphasis on product control rather than increased treatment at wastewater treatment plants. The good news is that many of those substances have already been banned at a European or a UK level, and the use of others is already declining, unless harmful products have emerged onto the market. We will continue to press the European Commission and the UK Government as appropriate to take action to ban the remaining substances. Meanwhile, I have tasked SIPA and Scottish Water to work together to identify any pollution hotspots that are caused by the residual effects of those substances and consider where additional wastewater treatment may be necessary, feasible and proportionate in order to prevent or at least limit the substances from causing any further harm to our precious freshwater and marine environments. I ask the committee to support that instrument. I wonder if there are any questions for the minister at the moment, yes. Alex Ferguson, followed by Mike Russell, followed by Claudia Beamish. Thank you, convener, and good morning, minister, and thank you for your introductory remarks. I just wanted to ask you one question, which, in the explanatory notes that we have been given, it says that all three directives introduced revised monitoring and assessment provisions, which you just explained. However, you also described that as potentially more challenging. The note then goes on to say that these high-level amendments will be of limited interest to stakeholders. Now, if they are high-level and challenging, I just wonder if you could explain why they are therefore not of great interest to stakeholders, because it seems to me that it will be very largely up to stakeholders to ensure that these new challenges are met. So, can you assure us that there is unlikely to be any possibility of an increased regulatory burden on stakeholders as a result of these changes? Yes, I can give you that assurance. The impacts of these changes will be fairly limited in Scotland, because, as I already said in my opening remarks, many of these substances have already been banned at a European or a UK level or they are currently being phased out. Others now have a limited use in Scotland, although the main exception is tributalin, which is TBT in its compounds. We are in the early stages of discussion with the UK Government regarding a possible ban. The implications for business are minimal. The vast majority, as I say, of these substances have already been withdrawn from use and other products have been replaced on the market. I know that there were some issues around on the cybermethyrin, one of the pesticides that historically had been very important in dealing with sheepscab, but that is not something that is actively used in agriculture and that has been effectively phased out through the market 10 years ago. Okay, thanks for that explanation. I just want to follow that up a little, because, inevitably, in any list of substances, there will be one or two, which people do not think too much about and suddenly discover, it has a use. Have your officials, perhaps with the Commission, analysed each of the substances, how many of them are there, and what their actual uses are? I would simply be concerned. I think that nobody objects to this regulation, but I would be concerned that working in there is one that somebody is going to discover is absolutely essential for their work, and that will cause some difficulties. Just adding to that, that is a very good point. Two to three years ago, there was a very extensive period of negotiation of the priority substances directive through the European Commission working group processes. A lot more substances were originally on the list or have been worked through that system or have been dropped out or have been identified as ones that we need to watch rather than priority substances for action now. We have been through that process both at the European level and in terms of informing the development of the guidance to SEPA, who will have the bulk of the additional work and the consequence that is part of their monitoring programme. We have been engaging with key sectors to understand any impact and also give them warning of the changes that are coming up. How many substances are there? There are 20. 20? All right. Would it be possible, without adding greatly to your regulatory burden, to have a list of them and the list of their uses, just in case this committee might want to look in case any of its stakeholders are adversely affected? We are very happy to supply that. The list that we have at the moment is the types of use that are around pesticides, industrial, combustion products, biocide, metal, and shipbuilding, as well as maintenance of public toilets. We are very happy to provide that list to the committee. Thank you, convener, and good morning, minister and to yourself, Neil. Within the same ethos, the question of the previous two, could I ask in view of the importance of having very pristine water for all sorts of reasons, per se, but also for a range of industries in Scotland related to food products as well? If there are new substances that come on, will those be considered in the future, or does that have to come back to us? Sometimes things come with a different name. I think of the neonicotinoid issue on land and things like that. The priority substances are something that is kept under regular review at the European level. As I understand, there are a suite of reviews that are done before new products are allowed to be placed on to the commercial marketplace in terms of understanding potential impacts. You mentioned 20 substances that would have some of them used in toilets, shipbuilding, pesticides. You said that there are no adverse implications, limited interest to stakeholders and that they are not consulted widely on their proposals. How widely and who you have consulted with? Obviously, there are 20 substances in three or four areas that have used those substances. How widely did you consult with which organisations? It is worth reiterating that the Scottish Government did not identify those substances ourselves. Those substances were the ones that were proposed by the European Commission. During the passage of the directives through Brussels, I know that there was a significant stakeholder engagement in Scotland with key interests, such as the Scottish Water in particular, given the implications for them. However, I am also conscious that there was significant involvement from EU-wide organisations, for example, and San Copa Cabana on the farming side of the group of farming unions in the process. I want to add to that, because obviously one of the responsible authorities is with Scottish Water. We did consult with Scottish Water and they were contained with our proposed approach. Do not move further questions just now. In that case, we moved to agenda item 3, subordinate legislation with consideration of motion S4M-13314, asking for the committee to recommend approval of the affirmative instrument, the water environment and water services Scotland Act 2003, modification of part 1 regulations 2015 draft. We can now move into a formal process, which hopefully will not take the 90 minutes that is there allotted for this particular item. People in the gallery may be happy to know that it is unlikely, but you never know. I invite the minister to speak to and move the motion. Are there any members who wish to make any statements? If not, you have formally moved, wind-up, no wind-up, thank you very much. I put the question now. The question is that the motion S4M-13314, in the name of Aileen McLeod, be approved. Are we all agreed? We are all agreed, so we will make that report of that and we thank Aileen McLeod and her official just now. The fourth item on the agenda for the committee is to consider two negative instruments as listed on the agenda. Rural Development Scotland Regulations 2015, SSI 2015-192 and the Rural Payments Appeals Scotland Regulations 2015, SSI 2015-194. I refer members to the paper. Are there any comments, members? Alex Ferguson? The second instrument, convener, my reading of it is that this is really simply replacing the appeal system, replacing the current appeal system and putting it into the new CAP support system. Is that your understanding as well? That would be my understanding as well. That is all right, but do we have any other comments? Other than that, I have no problems with it. You have. Claudia Beamish? Thank you, convener. It was just to highlight on the first one that the Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment is being prepared and I just wondered if there was a timescale for that, because it seems like if it is worth having a Bria, that it is kind of worth having it available because there are quite a lot of regulations that many of them have already been enforced before. We can write to the minister and ask for an explanation of that. Sarah Boyack? I have just wanted to ask a brief question about the implications of the land court in terms of how the appeals are expected to operate, whether I note the reference to legacy schemes, whether there has been analysis of the capacity in the land court and the time it takes to deal with those appeals, if there has been any work done on that? We should try to ask for answers about that as well. That is right. It is regularly noticed here that the land court seems to be coming into focus and seems to be requiring to do more work. That is a good thing for us to know. I think that we have captured any other points on those two instruments. If not, can I ask whether the committee has agreed that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to those instruments, apart from writing to the minister for those clarifications? We are agreed unanimously. Thank you very much. We move on to agenda item 5. That will require us to rejag the room just now. We will need to make a short break and we shall do that so that the guests can come and take their place. Good morning. Agenda item 5 is to take oral evidence on the common agriculture policy implementation in Scotland, specifically on the application process. We are joined by a panel of witnesses. I welcome everyone to the meeting and point out that the sound is controlled centrally, so you do not need to be switching anything on or off. When you are wanting to speak, just indicate and we will keep a list of people and we will call people in as well as we can. I welcome everyone to introduce themselves. I am the convener of the committee, Rob Gibson, MSP for Caithness, Sutherland and Ross, and I am going round the table to Sarah Boyack, Labour member for the Lothians. Doutucker, farmer from West Dirlingshire. Claudia Beamish, MSP for South Scotland and Shadow Minister for Environment and Climate Change. Alison Millan, farmer from Fife. Dave Thomson, MSP for Skylach, Abner and Barnock. Charlie Arum, farmer from Aberdeenshire and chairman of the NFUS Livestock Committee. I'm Mike Russell when he comes back. Alan Paterson, land agent from Castle Douglas. I'm Farmer from Dumfries, but I'm also chairman of the Scottish Beef Association. I'm Alex Ferguson, the constituent member for Gallowine West Dumfries. Michelle McDonnell, farmer in the Borders. I'm also working for Scotty IT. Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland. Jenny Douglas, I'm an agent for Seudin Coe in the Borders. Good morning, I'm Angus MacDonald, MSP for Falkirk East. I'm Russell Smith, crofter from Bonnerbridge in Sutherland and director of the Scottish Crofting Federation. I'm Graham Day, MSP for Angus South. Thank you very much everybody. Well, I'm just going to kick this off to try and get some of your views about what we're talking about, what is going on that has got people into a considerable lather about the way in which this new application system is working. Would anyone like to explain their experience at the moment, just to kick us off because then we'll hear a few of these and others will come in? Jenny Douglas, first hand up. I, as I say, am an agent and deal with a lot of different applications for different farmers. The problem with the system is to begin with, I think it's well known, it was very, very slow, it didn't work. We couldn't even log in. When the system goes down, all the guidance goes down, so you can't even sit and read what you should be doing as a farmer, everything goes offline. It then started to speed up merely May, so about three weeks ago. But there's still quite a lot of problems. You can't access maps very well. If you've got a larger farm, they are not uploading. You need to come out of what you're doing to go and look at that, so you can't have them as a parallel. You're logging out of doing the application to look at your maps really. Quite a lot of the time we're finding the maps are not uploading to see them, so we're needing to ask for maps. There are errors going forward when you move on to the next field. It's showing you areas from the fields before. It hangs, and if you're deleting a field, it might delete two fields at once, and you need to work that out and add that field back in. And there's incompatibility with SRDP, so when we're trying to claim people who have grant schemes, they're saying that they're incompatible with also claiming BPS, which isn't true. We're being asked to hold off submitting. We're holding off submitting, and the system's getting slower. Now, there's still 50 per cent of Scotland need to submit, and the system's getting slower and slower again. And we're worried that we're going to have to go back to paper copies again. Two weeks for the deadline. Okay, right. Somebody else. Charlie Adam. Thank you. First of all, you mentioned guidance and not being able to access it. I would have to say that, from a farmer's point of view, it's not just not being able to access it, it isn't there to access. From a very simple point of view, there is absolutely no instruction from the off as to what route to follow simply to even get started and to follow through. And also, there is a complete failure, as I can see, to return to pages without finding oneself back to square one, and no guidance even then how to get restarted. So at that level, that is appalling. And I'm somebody who has jumped at and applying online from the very word go and found the system previously to be user-friendly, intuitive and not a problem. So I would say in the position that we are in where we desperately want people to take up IT, do things online and communicate electronically. This is a tremendously retrograde step because anybody starting in this will have all their fears about doing so if they haven't done it before, confirmed and reinforced. In addition to that, I don't know where to stop, frankly, because there are so many things to see. But at the other end, I was consulting with a consultant involved who currently said that the system was handling about 300 cases per day, and he informed me that we would have to achieve 600 per day between now and the 15th of June in order to complete. Now, I know the system is speeded up, but certainly from personal experience yesterday, the system failed in the afternoon. I have had an email today through Gerald Banks from David Barnes saying that this was a small outage, but myself and someone else in this room who were communicating and trying to get on at a time when we were being told the system was now improved wasn't working at all. So there's a major concern as to whether or not the information being passed to senior people within the government or within the civil service is actually accurate in terms of the failings of the system. Frankly, we're heading potentially for a serious mess. I'd like to come back later, but I think that I've said enough just now. That will do for a beginning, yes indeed, but other people, please tell us what you think. Michelle, do you want to tell us some? I don't know where to start, to be really honest. It has been a nightmare. I'm very comfortable using a computer. I've used a computer for 30 years. I use it in my job. I couldn't even get on for four weeks to register. I was unable to access the site for four weeks. Two phone calls to our local office, what do I do, and they apologise. They were fairly mortified that I wasn't able to do it. They said persevere, just keep trying. I got to the end of February and I said, this is ridiculous. I must be able to get on. I'm going to start alarming. It's impossible. I was told using the website link address that we were all sent out, tried it and I said, please can I just try it whilst you're on the phone? Yes, that's fine. Obviously, it didn't work. She said, what we found is you go into Google toolbar and put rural payments in and you get to the same link. I said, looking at it, it's the same link as I've been using and I've been unable to use it. She said, try it through Google and I managed to get on to it. Four weeks it took to get to that stage. Right, two else wants to kick in. Helen Patterson first and then Scott. Miss Camilla, can I echo Mr Adam's sentiments? We're all looking to move this forward with the IT. I work as a land agent and submit a large number of IAXs. Last year, the online system was user-friendly. It had its problems, but it was fairly user-friendly and personally, I submitted 185 claims online. At the moment, we've been trying to use the IT system, which is not user-friendly, crashes all the time. We lose information. There's incompatible crop codes, rural priorities, anyone with a rural priorities contract. You can upload in the system, but when you get to the end, the validation system, it will not let you submit it. Time is now pressing. We've had an extension. We're moving towards the 15th of June. We are all sitting with various submissions on our computers that we cannot submit. Unfortunately, we have now had to take the decision to write them out manually and submit them to the area office so that we have a receipt to say that the farmer's submission is in. The upshot of that is that when they're submitted with their own paper or online, one of the worrying things is that if a farmer phones us tomorrow and says, I've made a mistake with the field number, I need to make an amendment to my SAF. We cannot amend it online, but neither can the rural private aid, the rural payment staff. Nobody can alter a SAF once it's submitted at the moment. We were told that this would alter in April, then we were told that it would alter in May and we were told again that it would alter in June. There are recorded deliveries and emails being sent to the local area officers who must say that area staff have been tremendous to try to help everybody, but the fact of the matter is that once that submit button is pressed, with up to 100 validation errors on an electronic submission, you cannot alter it. I'll just give you a short crazy of my history with it. I managed to get registered with the system on 19 January, but it took from turn of the year until that date to do it. I started to fill my SAF form in on 2 April, and I completed it yesterday. That's fully two months since it started. Last year, I did it electronically as well online, and it took me, I did it, within the space of one working day. We had a perfectly workable system last year that you could see what you were doing, the changes you were making, you could see on the form as you went through. As soon as you make an alteration on the present system, it disappears and you have no idea whether it's been logged on to the system or not. I said I submitted my form yesterday. I have some carry-over land managers options from the previous system. There were five years to commit to the thing for five years. One has for farm dykes. Those were picked up on the land parcels, on the form, well, I say picked up, there was one missing. Another part of the land managers options was over winter stubbles. They have been picked up on the form, but they are not registered on the summary page. I have been sitting with my SAF form completed all but that section for a fortnight. If I had countless numbers of phone calls back and forward to local staff, I would emphasise and reinforce what Alan said. They have been most helpful. Yesterday, I was given a reassurance that, despite an apparent mistake on the form, it was registered on the system that I had made this observation. There have been countless errors where things are not adding things up correctly. They tried to sell the system to us on the fact that it would check as it went along. While the checking procedure was not right, the additions were wrong, particularly in your greening, which was dependent on the area that you greened could have various waiting factors. It did not seem to take that into account when you were logging on. There are three different ways of achieving my greening—1 at 0.3, 1 at 0.7 and 1 at 1.5—and it seems to be difficult for it to do that. It seems to be doing that correctly now. It has speeded up—there is no doubt about that—but there are still issues outstanding with it. We have not got round to the procedure where our officials will be checking forms and goodness knows what will happen when we get to the other end, when we all hope that we will be getting paid out of the scheme. It appears that the whole system has been introduced before it is fit for purpose. Certainly, our organisation questions whether the other sections of it will be fit for purpose when they come to get used. Russell Smith I will make two or three points just now and then I have more detailed evidence if you want to hear it later. The Scottish Crofting Federation emailed round our members to ask for comments, and I have summarised that briefly just now out of 27 members who replied saying that they had used the online system, and 24 criticised it for various reasons. That raised a lot of points that have come up already about whether it is just not intuitive and questions about whether practitioners and farmers actually tested it or who tested it. Also, another theme coming out in the replies was that, as Gen has said, the department staff have always been very helpful every time that is over the whole of the north of the Highlands and Islands. The third point to make initially is that all my immediate neighbours just filled it in on paper because we could see that coming and we did not want to be part of it. Alison Milne I will start with something perhaps controversially positive. It has been said by a couple of people, but I appreciate the effort and the sentiment that has gone into the system from across the board, the Scottish Government staff, and I think that some of their frustrations are exactly the same as ours, but unfortunately that does not change the reality for us as farmers on the ground. I agree with everything that has been said. From a personal point of view, I have not found the system to be intuitive and I have individual technical issues that I am trying to resolve at the moment, but it is evident that we could write list after list of all the technical issues that there are. My greatest fear is that history would suggest that administrative errors are treated in exactly the same way as somebody who is purposely falsely declared. There is a huge level of fear among people rightly because evidence has shown that people have been penalised for such things. From an SCFA point of view, it would be nice to know that there was some reassurance that errors were going to be treated in a different way than they have done previously. I endorse everything that everybody has said, although I have been lucky enough not to experience all of it simply because my own farm is a very simple farm. It is nearly all permanent grass. The only other change is that a third of the farm is in trees, so trees are a nice simple one. The hedging was one that confused me because apparently it is to be regarded as permanent grass, which was a surprise to me, but I am very happy with that. I do not get involved in the greening, which a lot of farmers will have to, so again that is simple for me. I managed to register after hours and hours and help from the local office in February 2011. It then took me until May 11 to get my saf stuff, sitting on the couch with my own physical hard map, because you could not do it online, but we were advised to use the hard copy maps. The field locations were not in the same order on the map as they are online, so that proved a problem. Then I found that the errors were caused because some of my field locations were identical to each other. In my old brain I got confused and I put permanent grass when it should have been trees and stuff like that, but eventually I got there and I managed to get the whole thing done on May 11. I can see the potential once we get the hang of it, but only because I have a very simple straight forward farm and I am all region one. What it must be like with people who have different regions and different areas and cropping, it must be an absolute nightmare. My biggest worry, though, is that although the staff are wonderful at the local offices and try to be very helpful, they have only been supplied with the same guidance as we farmers have been supplied with. There is a degree of interpretation in what the guidelines are. For instance, all the youngsters who are coming in as starter farmers have been told that they will enter in at 2013 activity, but they were not advised that they should also take the box for—what was the next one again? That meant the difference between, if they were only doing the activity in 2013 or if they had started before 2013, they would come in in 2014 with nothing and they would get only a fifth of the regional average and then it would go up incrementally a fifth up until 2019, which meant they would be put on a further on-level playing field. When the reality was, fortunately confirmed by David Barnes in an email that I shared with the Forestry Commission starter farmers, no, they will come in at the regional average so long as they go into this next box, which is the national reserve. Firstly, I am led to believe that there is an admission of a greening calculation problem that is on the site. I am led to believe that a number of people have done applications and got to the point where the system tells them that they have met their greening requirements. They have then completed the submission and, as far as they are aware, have done it correctly and gone off to plough a field or whatever it is. No longer worried. However, because of this miscalculation, it turns out that these applications do not meet the greening requirement and, therefore, upon scrutiny will be subject presumably to penalty, which might be quite severe. Two points related to that are, one, that as far as I am aware, no person who has made such an application will have been informed and there does not appear to be a system in place to inform them before the deadline that their application is not valid and needs to be revisited. I am led to believe that revisiting at the moment is not even possible. That is potentially very serious and, of course, I would endorse what Dave Tucker said that, given that these things may happen, that the idea that someone might have a penalty because of something like that happening through no fault of their own would be completely unacceptable. The second thing that I wanted to mention was to do with mapping. A lot of the problems are arising because of extremely frequent remapping of farms, changing of field numbers right up until the present day so that somebody can be filling up a form while there is a new map sitting on the email that they have not even opened yet or in the post. In my case, I had a remap five and a half months ago completed, but the system is still showing up errors related to the fields that were remapped and includes fields that record the same land twice. It is almost essential in the future that remapping must stop before the whole business of doing this application ever starts and that the effects of remapping must be completely up-to-date on the system before anybody opens up the system to make an application. Jenny Douglas The problem and the sad thing is that I was very much for the online system, but farmers are really losing faith in the Scottish Government and feel that they are out to get them. They will get it wrong and they are going to get penalised for it, and they are all getting a little bit bitter. It is trying to, and then you see the press releases that are saying, we are doing so well, we are 48 per cent towards the target, two weeks for the deadline, actually three weeks beyond the deadline, and it is creating something that it shouldn't have. I mean, for the ones that we are doing, because of all the problems with the maths that it is generating, we are doing spreadsheets. Before we even start doing the online system, we are finding the easiest way to have some confidence in it is to do all of the information ourselves, calculate everything and then input that field by field. If those figures balance with our figures, then you have a bit more confidence in it because you cannot print what you have done in any sort of sense. It deletes the column with the field name and it puts them in a random order, so you have to go through them all. When you have 198 fields, it takes quite a long time to work out which fields which, and every time you reprint it, it scrambles the order again, and you do not get any totals on the sheet at all. All you get is some information, so that is no check. Our farmers are asking us to give them a print out of their claim, like we always did a PDF. All I am doing is screen dumps. Before I submit something, a screen dump to show them what, at least we have something, but I do not know what fallback we have for it. It is just a bit of frustration. Just to break this down, are there many farms with 198 fields? We have got quite a lot. Every hedge now, if a farm has got an SRDP, for example, and has got hedges around it, that is five parcels. Every hedge has a different LPID around one field, so that is five for everyone. We have got two simple grasslands, and it has gone up by 48 fields by every little thing. We have seen a lot with a huge increase this year, and some of them are not matching. The online system is generated before the map is generated, so the fields on the online system do not exist anymore. We are talking about fields as in computing fields rather than— As an LPID, sorry, the actual field, the field identifiers, again to do with the remapping side of things. Angus MacDonald has got a question just now. We are going to have to move on to some things in a minute that start to ask what we try to do, but probably Alex Ferguson wants to say something and then Russell, yes? Alex. I must say that everything that everybody said backs up what I have been told within my constituency and beyond. From that point of view, it is extremely useful. I cannot remember who it was for giving me the number of submissions that have already been received. It was Mr Adam, and there are clearly still a lot to go in the limited time available to us. Is it possible to say how many submissions have been made on paper rather than online, and whether it is possible in the experience of people on the panel? When you have submitted the form, is that the end of the problems, or is that to a certain extent when the problems start? If it is when the problems start, the number of submissions is actually a bit irrelevant, if that is when there are still a number of issues to remain. Alan, when Russell Smith wants to speak, is it related to that? I will make sure to come back directly to that point from Alan Patterson. Then Russell Smith, then Mike Russell. Come back to Mr Ferguson's point, the problems are just starting. Unfortunately, we have lost sight that we have had a month's extension. We have always been able to put our saffs in, whether on paper or online, hopefully online, and we have had a grace period where we can amend the saff. They have now given us an extension for one month to the 15th of June, but you cannot amend your saff after that. There is no amendment period. There is no period of grace where a man submits his form on the 14th of June and says, oh dear, I have made a mistake, and realises it on the 16th, that cannot be amended. I mean, when we start to hear what you are saying, the point about this hearing is not just to let off steam, or quite rightly, as you are doing, but to find some solutions to those things, and that is what this is all about. What you are saying is one of the things that will feed into that for sure. Your fears need to be answered, need to be... The greening issue that Mr Arun mentioned, there actually has been an agent's update to say that there is a problem on the system with the greening that has been acknowledged. I personally did register online, but it took me two goes to go it, despite having, say, 45 years of experience working with computers and having a fairly simple croff. We have two and a half pages of fields and we have no greening, and it is fairly straightforward. When it came to the IACs, I looked at it and I read the reports in the press. Again, with knowledge of introducing new computer systems, I made a positive decision not to use the computer system and just to fill in the paper forms as we have done in the past. They are a bit different, but that was a couple of hours sitting down at the kitchen table with the maps and the forms, and that was fine. I did with the new system, having taken the forms into the Goldsmiths Office and got a receipt for it. I then received an email saying that there was a communication for me, so that Friday evening I tried several times to log on to the system and failed. I tried several times on the Saturday and couldn't log on to the system. I tried first thing Sunday morning and couldn't log on, and the second attempt on Sunday morning I could log on. I eventually found my way through the screens to this communication, which was, as a perspective, just an acknowledgement that it handed it in. It was fine. I then received a paper copy in the post on Monday morning, so I received an email that was on the system and I received a paper copy as well. However, as I said before, we sent an email around our members to see what their experiences were, knowing that we were coming here. Of the people who replied, 31 per cent of them, which 19 people actually use in agent, which, for Crofts, I find a bit worrying if the system is so difficult that people with Crofts have got to use agents. 27 people said that they filled it in online, and only three of them didn't make a criticism of the system or didn't have problems in some extent. 14, which is a quarter of the people, did fill them in in paper. We also had two people who replied, saying that the system was too confusing and, as a result, they were not claiming, which I find very worrying. I know one of those people who is, both him and his wife, fairly sharp people. It's not a problem that they can't understand what's going on. However, some of the quotes that we did get back, and I'll go through some of them if you don't mind, I tried to use the online system, two complicated error messages at every step, gave up after spending far too much time on it, whereas they had to use the old system, went to the local office, always helpful and got a paper form. Pity they did not test the system with some real users before going live. Again, I used the online system. It took six attempts to complete. I had to delete the first five, as there were too many errors. I also helped to further five people to do their IACs form, and each application took one hour, which sounds quite good from other experiences. Apart from being so slow as to be worse than useless, the system is not at all intuitive, which has come up before. You seem to need to know what you're doing before you start. There are no hints and tips as to what you need to do and does not seem to have been designed with any input from an actual user. Again, the second attempt, I filled it out easily enough after I stopped worrying about perfection. I would never attempt at myself too much chance to make a mess or to make a mess. It is fundamentally wrong that people find the process so difficult that they have to pay a consultant or agent. Can we just stop you there, because there's a lot in this? It might be useful if you wish to give us a kind of summary submission from the SCF that would be very helpful. We're hearing a general picture of this, and it's very useful to have the crofting ones. You've been able to do that in a summary form, whereas we've got a lot of individuals here yet. Can I give two reasonably positive ones at the end of that? Why not? It was reasonably straightforward, but the website is unwieldy and awkward to navigate. Overall, I think that it is a good system as long as it is snag-free. Even of our agri-policy group, who are experts but at least have looked at those things, one David tried and failed, one succeeded and two others of us used paper. There are several people who want to ask questions, I suspect, and then we'll bring our witnesses in as well. Mike Russell, followed by Claudia Beamish, Sarah Boyack and Jim Hulme all want to ask questions, so let's see where it takes us. There are a couple of things that I'd like to know in the light of what I've heard. Firstly, if somebody can tell me what happens after you've filled it in and you think you've completed it, is it then checked there and then? Do you get an email to say that it's fine? Is it still to be checked? Will you not know until after 15 June? That's the first question. The second one is—this is very subjective, but I think it's worth asking—what's the difference between the people who say, well, actually it worked fine for me and are they logging on at three o'clock on a Sunday morning and the system works well because there's nobody else on? What's the difference between them and those who are so frustrated that they decided that they can't go ahead with it? Is it because they've done it later, rather than starting in February or trying to start in February, are they only just doing it now? I'm just trying to get to the bottom of that one. The final point is, I suppose, what really matters here is that people get paid in December. Wherever the problems are of a system that's, you know, struggling, clearly struggling, everything that the Government does has to be focused on making sure that people are paid. Would people want to reflect on how that could be done, given the difficulties that we're in? Right. Anyone want to respond to that? Charlie Adam? Just briefly, because I think that others will have things that I don't know about, but I think that part of the application process, difficulty will depend on the nature of your farm and which specific things you do or don't have to apply. I've heard of people who've got a straightforward farm with no greening and who have not had a problem. Also, I'm a night owl and 3 a.m. in the morning definitely works when 3 p.m. in the afternoon probably doesn't, so there's a capacity problem, I think. What does happen in terms of checking? Do you presumably know more about this than most? I believe when the IACs is submitted online, there's a self-checking process at the end that they call validation and verification. The validation and verification is when the errors or warnings get thrown up. Sometimes, for example, if you have a field that's 10 hectares and there's a ditch runs through it and there's a bit of a quarry in it, you may only, for safety's sake, claim 9.8, so you put 0.2 of a hectare as ineligible. That creates a warning, a validation and a verification, so that's three things on the one field when you go to submit. Can you override those? Can you just ignore them? Yes. It has a drop-down list where you can say that you're increasing the ineligible area in the field. We don't know whether we're increasing it for this year or we're increasing it as time goes forward, but you can do that. Then, when you get to the end, it brings down another summary, and if you have anything complicated, just as we said, a very simple farm with 10 or 12 fields that are all grass and a livestock farm maybe isn't a big issue, but someone that's doing cropping that has a rural priorities contract or land managers options that continue on. Unfortunately, there is a big problem with compatibility between the crop codes. Can I press you a little because I just want to understand this? At that moment, when you're presented with this list, what do you do? Do you carry on and finish the job and get it submitted, and does that mean that it is submitted? If you can. If you can, sometimes it won't let you. Sometimes it won't let you. If there's a compatibility issue with the crop codes, it will not let you submit the form. It will let you validate and verify certain things. That's what I said earlier on, that we have them sitting on our computers, that it won't let us submit, so we're having to submit them on paper. We're having to take them out, delete them and write them out. Supposedly you press a button, it's all in. Is that a guarantee that it's all in and okay, or does somebody come back to you? Jenny is obviously going to answer this. Does somebody come back to you and say, hang on, paragraph 61 is wrong? We will find out usually in the old scheme between August and November if there's a problem by getting a letter saying, you've made this error, here's potential. The letter always says, we're going to find you, but if it's depending on the size of it, you often don't get a fine, but the farmers get quite worried every time. You don't find it until much later in the year if there's a problem. By that point, that's them trying to assess it to get the payments ready. By that point, it's far too late to make these changes and you just get your knuckles wrapped or get a penalty. We get a letter saying, you've submitted, here's your submission number, and now we wait and see what the result is. We don't see any more than that now. If there is something deliberately or accidentally wrong in the form, you won't know that for a long period of time. Until the department processed them and come back to us. In the old scheme, that still took a few months. In this scheme, I don't know how long that will take. I fill out all my field details, and then once I get to the end, I've got 18 validation errors. The principle of that is great because it allows me to go back and correct them, assuming that the validation errors are all working correctly. That's great. The biggest problem is the lack of guidance, because sometimes it's not very easy to interpret the validation error. I'll sit and read it three or four times and I'm thinking, what does that actually mean? I refer back to the guidance and there isn't any. We're left in a position where we just have to make our own judgment call or phone the department on that and hope that we can get an answer. If we're looking for solutions in the short time that we've got available, one of the best things would be frequently asked questions. We've often used that in the past with different schemes, where farmers give their questions and the department supply the answer. That would be, from a personal point of view, I would find that really helpful. The biggest issue is that they will be getting paid on time. No matter all this, that's the priority. Yes. A number of members want to ask questions, so it doesn't mean that everyone has to answer because we've got flavour of quite a lot. First of all, it's Claudia Beamish and then Sarah Boyack. I'm not going to go into the details of issues that were raised at the Clyde and Forth NFU meeting that I attended last Friday, which Dave was also at because they really bear out, I think. I hope that you agree with me not to put words in your mouth. The points that have been made around the table bear that out, but I just would like that recorded. There were two points that haven't come up yet, which just within the discussion today I'd appreciate. Comment on whether people feel that it's significant. Obviously, farmers are having to make phone calls to get advice if they're not getting the guidance in frequently asked questions or whatever. I understand that there's some concern about differing advice being given depending on who you speak to when you phone up the department. For instance, the example given last Friday was from a new entrant who got advice from someone as he put it, fairly down the hierarchy, and then when he asked somebody else who was higher up as he understood it, when he was passed on, he was given different information. I just wonder if that might just be a last straw for people if they don't have any guidance and then they're phoning up and they're getting differing views, and that's something that would obviously need to be highlighted. The other thing is people taking their computers into local offices and wanting to do their application there and then with some guidance. There was positive talk last Friday about the support that's being given, but I understand that at one local office that people are not able to use their own laptops and connect with the wi-fi and do it there and then with advice. Is there anything that needs to be answered for those who are added to it? Is that an experience of Claudius? I don't know, but I can just say a bit about advice from different officers having different advice. I, one of our clients in a economy company, so we'll go across Scotland and give advice on those things, so we speak to different area offices and it's very, very, you get different answers. I've had four different answers I've found, so there's a lot of scarily officers giving out advice to farmers that's completely against the rules and you find it about it and get it fixed. So I don't know how one person can perhaps be allocated it. I know it's a big job, but if people don't know the answer, they need to be kept quiet if there's a way that can be fixed, because that's worrying. If people trust the department's advice, a lot of them are very good and they're very helpful, but sometimes the right advice isn't being given. There's no national help set. You don't have a single number to ring to get an answer to it. No. May I, please? A moment, minute. Sorry. Day, first of all. Yes. On your point at the particular office that I go to, there is what was called the entitlement specialist for whom this young man, he was, he went to, he phoned up Perth and he got somebody lower down and they said, no, I'll need to check with the entitlement specialist. So the entitlement specialist came back with this piece of misinformation. Now it could have been lost in the translation, don't get me wrong. However it was the wrong information. I knew it was the wrong information because I help a lot of these young starter farmers myself. So I filed off an email to David Barnes on Sunday evening and God bless him. Monday morning, nine o'clock, I got a response from him very detailed correcting what the officer had said. So I then phoned up the officer and said, did he realise this? And he said, no, we've only got the same guidance as you've got. I said, would you like to see this email? So he was very grateful to have the email. So hopefully that particular officer is now aware of this particular rule. Okay. Charlie Adam and then Russell Smith. On the subject of answers from local officers, I mean I would emphasise what's been said before. I think local office staff are doing their very best in an impossible situation. But purely from a farmer's point of view, you are very lucky if you have Day Tucker to make a phone call to David Barnes and there will be many, many people who, who do not do that and who take that advice in good faith. And this doesn't frankly apply just to the situation we're in now, but over time and in the past, the situation has been that one has received verbal advice from staff in good faith, I'm sure, from local officers, which has turned out to be wrong. And in my own personal case, I've acted on that advice and it's cost me quite a few thousand pounds, so it's a sore point. I would urge that when advice is given in good faith or not, that there ought to be some written confirmation, whether by email, of the fact that that advice was given so that the farmer, except in good faith, does not then pay the penalty for acting on the basis of wrong information. We'll come to the points about how we think it should be handled given the complexities later on, but you know, you're pointing us in a direction of things that we will be seeing clearly, with regard to your fears about penalties and so on. I've applied before, but keeping focused on the system as it is now, Russell Smith, and then I'm going to go on from there to ask Sarah Boyack to ask her questions, yes. Thanks again. Yeah, just on the point of support and things, I believe in the Gullsby office there is a terminal in which people can go in and use, or a computer, with advice. That gets around all the problems of people using their own computers, but that, like a lot of these things, is only really any use if you're actually quite close to the office. There are people on islands and in remote areas who have no broadband, too far to drive into an office, and we mustn't lose sight of the fact that there's always going to have to be a paper and post alternative for some people, and that has to be kept available. Indeed. Right, Sarah Boyack. There's been an awful lot of very, very good feedback, and it does sound like it's been incredibly difficult period. Some of those issues were highlighted when the Audit Committee looked at the scheme, and some have emerged in questions to ministers. Some of us have asked over the past few weeks. I think in my head that I've got some thoughts about what would be useful that we as a committee could advise over the next couple of weeks, convener, because there are clearly thousands of people still to fill in their forms, and I suspect that listening to us today, hearing you, is not going to fill them with comfort. So maybe thinking about the issue of that frequently asked question, national advice, and for people who are not comfortable on computers, maybe just doing it on paper this time round while the system gets sorted out. I think that convener would also be good to pick up any other things that we could do in the immediate couple of weeks to ask ministers for that haven't been mentioned. Then I think that the local offices come out very strongly here as being incredibly useful, so maybe there's something about reinforcing the best practice advice to get people through the next two weeks. I think that either at this point in the meeting later on, it would be good to get reassurances from the Government about the process of verification, and because of the nature of those forms and the complexity and the errors in the system about some way this year to take account that people have in all good faith made errors, that could be catastrophic errors, but that's something that we might want to feed back to ministers. Can we make a list as we're going through just now of things that we think we've got to get answers on very quickly? I'm keen if there's any other couple of things that are about the two weeks. Before we leave today, it would be good to get experience of users just about what things they think will be particularly critical in terms of the processing verification stage this year to make sure that people don't inadvertently lose out because of the design of the system. Does anyone want to respond to that last point just now about what would help in the next couple of weeks, most of all, Alex Ferguson? I just want to make a point that I think would be helpful. My understanding is that south of the border, when they did realise that their system was simply not going to work, they sent out packs of paper forms preloaded with information from the previous year's application, which saves an awful lot of time when you're coming to fill them all in. Just to get it on the record, when you have filled in a paper form rather than online, has that been a form that's been preloaded with the information from previous schemes? Is anybody aware of whether or not such forms are available? If we're going to meet this deadline, it seems to me that we're going to have to have some sort of fast-tracking system. If paper forms that were preloaded for each individual farm were available, it would obviously speed up the process considerably. I just wondered if anybody wanted to comment on that. Russell, what did you find? We received paper forms in the post back in end of March, which were pre-filled in because in the past we've always done them in paper. I then received another pack towards the end of May that was off to the deadline, so the letter telling me that the deadline had been extended, which came off to the deadline. Can you just confirm who that is when you say that we received paper forms already filled in? My croft. The second lot of forms that I received were also pre-filled in, even though I had submitted them by that time. Alan, Parson and then Jenny. Mr Ferguson is trying to get to it. If they were submitted electronically last year, as most of the forms were, there were no pre-printed forms available and they were starting with a blank sheet of paper and a blank map up until Monday evening. On Monday evening, the pre-printed packs, which have been sitting as a contingency since March, all of a sudden they are now available through the area office when agents and farmers have mostly got them done by writing out the entire thing from a blank sheet of paper. From Monday evening, I believe, you can apply to your area office and the pre-printed packs are now available. They have been sitting in a warehouse somewhere and it's the first of June date that they've opened them. Before that was, can we get pre-printed forms then, because we've asked and asked and exactly that. We've been told they're in a vault with a letter saying, because the system has gone down, here's your pre-printed copy, because the system hasn't gone down, they couldn't send the pre-printed out, so no-one was allowed pre-printed if he didn't do it, if he weren't already getting a pre-printed. So the human error in writing lamb parcel numbers for that many fields was awful as well, so it's trying to balance out the pros and cons if we can now get them. We haven't been told in the boarders anyway that we can get them, but if we can, for some that will speed it up a little bit. So it's good to know. Right, Jim Hewman. I've been just a comment and then maybe explore a slightly different area. Obviously, the system doesn't seem to be intuitive, therefore I think it might be worth us looking in to see how it was tested before it went live. It doesn't seem to have been any guidance notes sent out, but if I'm happy to be corrected on that, an online help or national help line, as Michael Russell mentioned, doesn't seem to have been up to system. As Alan Paterson has said, the crashing system, you lost your info, which is something that, if that seems to be the case, is something that we would have to push for. But another issue, I had an answer to a question yesterday just regarding the grass let situation, which we're all aware of. There's some landlords speculatively claiming on that. The Government, in an answer to a question yesterday, said that they're researching, commissioned initial research, analysing the importance of seasonally let land. But we know that there are, as I said, landlords speculatively claiming, whereas what we would call the real farmers are actually still paying rent for that, but have no option to put land let out, which was LLO, which was on forms in the past, I believe, on the new system. So, as far as I can see, we will not be able to actually know where the grass has been let out or not let out. I just wonder if that was a situation that some had held on. Does anyone have any information on that point? Exactly. I am fortunate in one of the farms that has traditionally taken seasonal let's with eight years. We've taken several farm seasonal let's, and our landlord has chosen to take our claim for these fields and things. I'm not able, because of the lease that we've just signed, paying the same rent, unfortunately, for it. I have had to sign at least to say that I will not have on our claim form any reference to this farm. We are still seasonally letting it, paying rent for it and farming it, but I've had to sign a form to say that I will be unable to have it on my form. That's a question for the landlord. It is, but the issue is that I have it sitting on my form, because we've claimed it for the last eight years. It's sitting on my form, so I have to exclude it, which is impossible. The system is that you look at each of the fields, each of the field identifiers, and you have to consciously exclude it. There's a drop-down, it says, mapping in process, parcel sold, not used for agricultural purposes or seasonal let that I don't use anymore. I can't sign that, so I can't exclude it. I'm now in the position where I've signed, at least to say, I won't have it on my form, and I can't take it off my form. That's not the farms. No, it is. Why not have another drop-down? Seasonal let is still being used by somebody else making a claim. The point is made, perhaps so. On that very point, we met the issue of seasonal let. We met the cabinet secretary about a month ago, several of us, and quite a number of us have represented in this room. We brought the very point up about the landlord grab back of land that had been traditionally seasonally let. He made very robust statements at that time, but we still question as to whether it has changed the actions of any landlords. I'm not aware of that happening, but I'm certainly aware of quite a number of landlords taking land back into their own hands. Some really big, huge areas of land that we're talking about here that's lost to the actual active farmer. Michelle's point here is very, I mean, I've experienced the same thing myself. It's like the new slipper farmers. We have a new breed of slipper farmers yet. Indeed, and we're aware of that, so the point's well made, and we can reflect that. Any other answers to Jim's point, apart from that, Alan Paterson, yes? How does Jim refer into the land let-out category on the system? The reason why people are not putting land let-out is it makes the whole parcel ineligible. For example, a farmer who's farming half his farm and letting out to his neighbour two or three fields. If he puts it on as land let-out, that crop code within the online system makes the whole field ineligible. We don't know why they've been trying to sort it since March, and we've been promised an i-fix that hasn't happened. Jenny Douglas? It's okay to do these comments, so it's probably not for the online system. Just a response to landlords. Technically, a farmer can be active. For both, we can grow a crop of grass, put the fertiliser on and just let the grass for the sheep to graze and aren't breaching the rules. It works both ways, but there are people that are doing extremes, so there's different ways around it. You could put one of the drop-downs on the form and submit a letter to explain that you are grazing it. You are allowed to graze it and not claim it, the landlord claim it, because he's grown the crop of grass for you, and you just put a cover letter in with it. A question from Graham here to finish up this round before we try to get to some of the things that we've got to be saying so that we can sum it all up. If you want to make a video of two questions, neither of which is designed to let those responsible for the system off the hook, but to get some sort of clear perspective here. For the purposes of clarity, when we embark on the cap process, everybody says that they want a simplified cap, then they realise that they're going to miss out personally, and the cap ends up incredibly complex, as we know. People are smiling because they recognise that scenario, so we've ended up with an incredibly complicated cap. To what extent may that have contributed to the problems with the system? Simply because it is so complex. I pose that question, and the second question is that we've generally heard about issues with the system that are about functionality and technical problems. I recognise that, but just for information purposes, to what extent will broadband speed be playing a part? We talked about downloading maps, et cetera, et cetera, so just to get a feel for what difficulties were being encountered under the previous regime when you were trying to register online. On broadband speed, I would say that there's definitely a factor, but I also think that there are other factors affecting it. I would give the example of the mapping system that seems to take quite a lot to drive, and it's worse depending on the system or the connection you have. I'm aware of other mapping systems that do the same thing, which don't have that problem, and I'd have to ask why that is the case. The other thing that I would say in relation to the complication of the cap is that it obviously has become very complicated, but I think that a large factor in all of this is the drip feed of change, which has been going on virtually right up to date. Certainly from a farmer's point of view, with greening rules changing in October, December and then February, March, I suspect that that would lead somebody like me to hang back over committing a position in filling up a form simply because of the fact that not only have those changes happened, but frankly they've happened and been notified far, far too late in relation to the change. That may be because that information wasn't available sooner. I would suspect, in some cases, because the questions weren't asked soon enough. It was the commission that was changing its mind, but what was acceptable? In some cases, I think that the commission was changing its mind. In some cases, frankly, I think that the Scottish Government left it far too late to go to the commission and ask the question. Well, we can ask that of course, but we do know that there was very difficulty in pinning down just exactly how the greening would apply. Of course, everyone's concerned about it. I can give one example, which is that on the subject of whether or not grass could be sown into fallow lands used for environmental focus area, the booklet and the tour carried out by the department in October and November stated that that could happen, and there's actually a film online of the booklet containing that information being handed out. That information changed on 23 December. There will be people who had made all of their cropping plans and set out their farms on that basis long before that, who then found themselves in a position where what they had done had potentially ruled out the other option that they now had to take. That doesn't breed confidence, especially in an on-going situation. So do we think that this is an issue about the first time this one's been used and that, in fact, it's the sort of things that will begin to see being sorted out? The problems that we're experiencing now, I don't think, are to do with the rules. It's definitely, it's an IT issue. We are finding farmers who haven't met the rules and are foring up going partners on about greening. The Government promised me to fix it. What are we doing about it? And that's worrying. Because the rules changed so much, I was doing presentations across Scotland every six weeks, and every six weeks it changed. The fallow thing scuppered so many farmers. People have sold livestock that we've heard up north because they've... So many. So many. I don't know figures. But a lot we've spoken to. We know of farmers that have had to sell livestock because they plowed land, ready to put fallow into grass and don't enough grass now. It caught a lot of people out. The rules, the waitings, don't match certain farmers. And it's lost. It's upset a lot of farmers. It's made it quite difficult for a lot of farmers to meet the rules. But I don't think the problems we're having just now are because of that. It just adds to it. Yes. Why that change took place in 23rd, was that a European change? And if so, what representations were made by the NFU and others about it? I mean, if it's that inconvenient, what was the answer to it? First of all, I can say, I actually sat beside Drew Sloan at the moment of announcement and saw the look of shock on his face when he read what was in his own book, which I have to say was interesting. And it was fairly clear that questions were going to be asked. But I mean, I do think that Europe has an element of responsibility here. And there are other things such as the question of whether drainage could be carried out on environmental focus area, where the Scottish Government initially took a line that that couldn't happen. And the UK DEFRA took an opposite line. And I believe there was an argument going on between them as to which of the two were correct. And one or other of them are going to find that they were actually wrong. But just stick with the fellow language. It's happened on the 23rd of December, right? So what happened thereafter? I mean, has the department apologised? Have they offered compensation? Have people asked for compensation? You know, you can't just have a change of that and say, oh, that's it, let's move on. What happened? Sorry, Alison, here we go. I was just going to say that my husband and I sat down maybe two or three days before the change to decide exactly what we were doing. I went on the Government website because I thought that that's where I'm going to get the most up-to-date information. And it said we could sow the grass seed. Later on that day, I read the NFUS weekly review which said, no, you can't do this. And I thought, well, it's not very often, actually, if you're wrong. So I'm maybe going to go with them and found out that, yeah, in fact, and the guidance remained there for about five or six days. So people could still be willfully making that choice. And yeah, there was no, I mean, from a personal point of view, we didn't go to the department and say, well, can we have any compensation because we made a decision on this. And as far as I'm aware, I don't think anybody did. But, yeah, people were very upset about it. We're going to talk about it on 31 December, so there's not a case to argue. It's not come into force yet. It follows starts 15 January. So we shouted a lot about it because we knew of a lot of farmers that it affected it, made it very difficult for them to come up with another option for it. But it supposedly came in. And the update, the public update we found without scouring the website every day was through their Facebook page. So we found out before our local area office. It's how that is the way things are moving. That's the way we're finding out changes is through their Facebook page before we read them anywhere else. And the art, the decision we were told was it's before the first of January. You'd have to be a Facebook friend of the Scottish Government. Oh, yes. That'd be good. There you are. Can I back to Graham Day for supplementary? Just to be clear, convener, so it is what we're saying that we don't recognise that the complexity of the cap we finished up with has been a factor in this. Not at all. It's a very complex cap, but the rules are there that we can apply. But we at the moment have an IT system, which all these have to be applied for and through. The old system was user-friendly and we were able to see what we were doing. They've thrown everything out and started again. And people are unused to the rules as well as unused to an unfriendly IT system, which was always going to be a recipe for disaster. Okay, we've got this far. We've had some suggestions from Sarah Boyack and from Mike Russell about things that need to happen soon. Sarah suggested frequently asked questions, national advice, paper copies available. We heard that paper copies will be available. The local offices need to have the exact information that everybody else has and not at a variety of it. The verification process has got to be something that's friendly to the farmers. This is all trying to help to make sure that people don't feel in fear that they're going to be penalised. Then there's the on-going issues related to the verification followed by a process that takes into account that the system is complex and that people will have made mistakes on it, and therefore we're seeking some means to allay their fears about penalties and so on. This is the stuff that I'm hearing. Can we add to that list that I've just described? I can prove the speed of it. In the past two weeks, in the past 48 hours, it's getting slower and slower as demand is getting higher and higher. Is there a way at that end that it can take more users or something? We've got SRDP to put in, too. That's the worry that it's going to just stop. Some other things to add to that, Mike? An urgent helpline for the last fortnight so that people can ring up at even at 3 o'clock in the morning, maybe a little bit before that, and get definitive help. The second one is, I'm absolutely certain, that the advice that we should give to Richard is that the payments must be made on time and everything is subordinated to that. It is possible to correct a system over a period of time and get it to work better for next year. The important thing this time is that the price of the difficulties is not paid by the individual farmer. Okay. Are there any further—I'm sorry, Alex wanted to make a point as well. It follows on from that a bit, convener. Thank you very much. If I understand this correctly, it's distinctly possible that I don't, the speed of payments will depend on the number of inspections that have to take place during the verification process and all of that. It seems to me by what everybody said that that is going to be impacted on by the same staff who are also going to have to deal with the SRDP situation that Jenny has just brought up. Again, my understanding is that SRDP applications have to be done by the 13th of this month, not the 15th. I beg your pardon, the 12th of this month being a Friday, that's right. It seems to me that there is inevitably going to be a consequential impact on SRDP applications if there is any chance of the basic payments being made in December. Are we facing a situation where SRDP applications are just going to be put on indefinite hold until this verification process has been completed? I can say that some of the consultants who handle quite a number of the SRDP applications have simply had to say that we can handle none of them because of the difficulties that we are having with the pillar one basic application. I think that there had been strong pressure for an extension of the application period to allow them to make those applications, but as far as I am aware, there has been no movement on that. I do not know whether that movement is something that is giveable. It is something that we have to ask urgently. That is a different question than one that Alex asked. Alex is asking about the pressure on the Government system, which I think is very considerable, but that is a very interesting take on that, where, naturally, the application process through consultants is going to be more difficult to do because people cannot do everything themselves. I think that that demands some sort of change of date. The SRDP is all online now, and that is the worry. I know that a lot of people have refused to do any, I have tried, and you have got the odd persons persistent and once they are at the bottom of their priority, we need to get all the applications in first. I have one to try and do in the next 10 days, but I am worried that if we cannot upload things, that is the only way to do it. They seem to have been before, and I quite to fact that they are not changing the deadline for it. I think that we have got messages loud and clear. Are there any other points to add to our list? I think that we have got a substantial one and a very informed one from your efforts just now to give us your experience. If you are happy with us to do that, or if there are any points that you wish to make in writing to us, simply write to us. Do not try and send. It would be easier for us indeed, but we will try and make a very early effort to convey this information as clearly as possible. You can rely on that. I would like to thank all of you as witnesses for the excellent session. A difficult one, but a time of a new cap, I think that it is something that has got to get sorted and sorted quickly. We are on your side as far as that is concerned, as you can see. I think that we can speak with a united voice on that. The ways of finding the answers may be slightly more difficult, as we know, but thank you all for your presence and your evidence. We will call a short suspension after that to allow witnesses to leave and us to move on to the next public item. We will move on to the next item, which is the Public Petition PE 01547 from Ian Gordon and the Salmon and Trout Association on the Conservation of Scottish Wild Salmon. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to ensure that no Atlantic salmon are killed before 1 July and to end coastal netting of mixed stock fisheries. The committee has heard back from the minister following its decision to write to her on the petition as part of the Wild Fisheries review. We also have a response from the petitioner on the correspondence, and I refer members to the paper and invite your comments just now. I have some considerable sympathy with part 1 of the petition where it talks about a ban for a five-year period up to a certain date in the year. However, part 2 of the petition where it focuses in on one sector is obviously unfair, I would suggest. That is where I would be at on that. Mike Russell. I think that the minister has made it fairly clear that she intends, and I think that the committee had agreed with us, to go ahead with her consultation. It would have to be quicker than perhaps had been talked about, but I do not think that it is possible to reach a conclusion on this until the consultation is over. I think that the one thing that is clear that if there is to be any reduction in take and any suspension of take, it would have to apply to all sectors, not just to one sector, and it is quite unreasonable to expect one sector to take all the pain. If that comes back as it will come back as an issue after the consultation, then everybody involved in the business of taking salmon will have to see major change take place. I agree very much with Mike Russell. I think that we have to let the consultation take its course and then consider matters after that. There is an associated issue, which I think that we maybe need to get a bit more information on. Just recently, I saw some information about the number of salmon being taken by seals. It is a phenomenal amount, and it looks like there is more scientific evidence becoming available in relation to this. I wonder if we need to get more information and do a little bit of work just on the impact of the seals in relation to the stocks of salmon. There is no point in looking at Netsman and Anglars if huge amounts of salmon are disappearing in the high seas and around the coasts because of seals. I am not taking a position on that. I want to make that clear, but I would like more information on the latest science and so on. I will lead us to a certain conclusion at the end of this discussion for needing more information. Claudia Beamish. Obviously, the sustainable harvest of wild salmon is extremely important, and others on this committee, including our convener, have made this point in the past and may well do so again. Perhaps the petition is somewhat of a blunt instrument in that it has a certain date on it for up to what point there should not be any killing of salmon. I do think that the catch-and-release process has functioned much better, but I agree with those members who have raised the point that it should be all sectors who should take the pain, and pain there will indeed be. When we heard from the minister about the Wild Fisheries review, I did have some concerns about where the research was going in terms of the science. I see that the letter from the minister about the petition has highlighted the concerns about science, and I would want to be sure that there is robust scientific evidence going forward on which the Scottish Government can make future decisions about the way forward. Graham Day. I think that the point about the science is very well made, and I have gone on from Dave Thomson's point. We also need to be as assured as we can be about the impact of climate change and the migratory patterns of salmon and how that is impacting on the situation, so gathering the most robust and reliable scientific evidence from all sides of this is absolutely imperative. Any further comments? I am just a bit concerned that the one-sidedness of the petitioner's view becomes impossible without us reaching scientific conclusions. As a sentence to one of the paragraphs by the petitioner, which says, mixtock fisheries cannot be deemed, quote, sustainable unless one can be certain that all the salmon killed in such fisheries are destined for rivers which have sustainable surpluses. That is not correct. It is not clear. It is not something that is balanced, because the way in which we work out a sustainable harvest will be on the basis of the stocks of salmon that there are, which are some migratory species, will have to be measured in several different ways. That sentence just does not grab the reality. It is a partial view, and I do not think that that is a way that the committee would like to be able to take that forward. I think from what I am hearing that we are needing to get information of a scientific-based nature. Obviously, the SPICE could provide us with some background, but we are looking to the review that the Government is doing to include that kind of information. Whatever we say just now is going to be something that we convey to the Government to get that information, so that we can clarify those points about what sustainable harvests are. That means that we reach a point where, because the petition is open and because it is inconclusive and because we have got more questions like Dave Thomson's one about the need to know the impact of sales in a scientific way, that those questions need to be answered. I believe that I am just going to suggest that we have to keep this petition open in order that we get some more answers for that and that we come back and speak with the petitioner in due course. That could be once we get the outcome of the review or whatever, but that feeds into the review and it is helpful for us to be able to suggest the minister things that we need to know. Would you like to add to that anywhere? Is that fair enough? Yes. I agree with that. I think that that is very sensible. Both the review, which will give us some of this really crucial scientific information, but also the forthcoming secondary legislation. With your suggestion to keep this petition open, it means that we consider the points in the petition when we get that secondary legislation. I think that the only thing is that we would like it as soon as possible to get on with addressing the issue. I think that that is a point that is very well made that adds to what I was saying. We will go forward with that process. There is a lot to find out when you know more about it before we do anything else, so we will let the Government know our review and we will keep the petition open. We agree to that action and writing. The next item is agenda item 7. On public petitions, the seventh item on our agenda today is to consider the correspondence from the Public Petitions Committee on PE01542 on human rights for dairy farmers. I refer members to the paper and invite any comments that members may have. Mike Russell. I have worked with the bundles as the constituency MSP for Argyll and Bute. It has been the view of, I believe, both of my predecessors as the MSP for Argyll and Bute that this distressing matter can only be dealt with in the courts. There was a democratic decision of the farmers in Quintar to have the ring fence and the only way that that could be declared to be illegal would be to have a judicial review of the decision. That was a very long time ago taken by Tory Government. It was supported in the area and across Scotland. I do not believe that any benefit would come from any further activity on a petition, which is immense. I think that this is the second or third petition. I think that this has to be a matter for the courts. That advice has been given to the bundles by a number of people, including myself. As a member of the Public Petitions Committee, I made my views clear at that committee and they are on record. With regard to the official report that is worth from the Public Petitions Committee, it is worth noting that Dave Stewart at MSP's comment that the petitioners have contacted more than 50 lawyers to no avail and with no satisfactory outcome for the petitioners. It is also, I think, worth placing on record again that the Scottish Human Rights Commission has advised the Public Petitions Committee that only a court could rule on the issue, and that should be taken on board. Given that we are where we are with regard to the situation, I think that we should write to the Public Petitions Committee advising that the petition should be closed. Alex Ferguson? Just very briefly, convener, I have followed the bundles' concerns over the issue through the pages of the Scottish Farmer for many, many years. I feel very sorry for them, because it has clearly become a burning issue. I just want to put on record the fact that, as Mike Russell rightly said, this whole situation has been the result of a democratic decision that was taken, and one cannot do anything about a subject that, as Angus MacDonald has just said, is widely recognised that the only resolution can be through the courts if there is a resolution, which I suspect there is. Therefore, I endorse for the record the action that is proposed. I think that we are getting the impression that we should write to the Petitions Committee with those views, and that we should leave them to convey that to the petitioner. We agree. We move on to say that, at the next meeting of the committee, we will be in Kirkwall Grammar School in Orkney to begin pre-legislative scrutiny of the Scottish Government's proposals on land reform. Like all committee meetings, this is a public event, and tickets can be obtained via the Parliament's website. As agreed earlier, we will now move into private session to consider item 8 on evidence hearing this morning. I close the public part of the meeting and ask the public gallery to be cleared.