���˿���

I am aware of the time, convener, so I will leave my questions there.

Dieter, you are a fantastic witness. I have been engrossed in everything that you have said, but, if I was still farming, I would be thinking, “Oh my God, I hope he doesn’t develop the policy or we’re not going to get a penny.” I might be completely misrepresenting what you say.

I would like to raise a couple of points with you. Another thing that I have got out of the conversation is that we can talk in silos and it sounds great until we start to bring in the unintended consequences. You have given us so much to think about. I have thoroughly enjoyed your evidence.

Correct me if I am wrong, but food costs us in subsidy from the public purse, in land degradation and environmental damage or in the consumer paying for it from their purse when they buy it in the shops. The current subsidy system was introduced after the second world war. About 30 per cent of household income used to go on food, but now it is about 8.5 per cent. Therefore, it could be argued that the public value of the subsidy is the fact that food is cheap. However, the counter to that is that we can buy much cheaper food from Australia or America, for instance, and the question is whether the price of the subsidy out of the consumers’ pockets will still be met by bringing in cheap food from elsewhere. That is a short statement but it is a huge question. How do we square that?

My question is about Eilidh Mactaggart’s role in relation to what is going to be funded.

Dieter Helm talked about the possibility of investments in land in Scotland being handled by a trust fund that would have environmental concerns and sequestration as prerequisites for the initiatives that received funding. Do you see the Scottish National Investment Bank as the vehicle for that, so that any private funds that come into land in Scotland come through you and are then distributed via that one-stop shop in order to achieve the environmental aims, rather than there being what he described as a wild west free-for-all?

We have got the big ideas, the big visions and all the rest of it, but there is concern that market-based mechanisms such as carbon credits are fuelling the attractiveness of purchasing land for carbon offsetting. That potentially brings risks to local communities and other land users. On 30 September, the Scottish Parliament held a members’ business debate on community wealth and the emergence of green lairds, in which the impact of carbon markets on land and land ownership was discussed.

My question is for Eilidh Mactaggart and then for Pat Snowdon. How can we avoid greenwashing by major companies coming into Scotland and buying up natural capital without any great benefit to the people who live here?

I might be missing something, but I am still not 100 per cent clear about where private investment relating to carbon gets a return, if the market is not to be highly regulated. Are we in danger of repeating what happened when we had subsidy quotas in farming? People started to trade in quotas rather than in livestock, for example. They sold quotas, and we created a whole new economy of quotas.

In our evidence session on 24 November, David Finlay from the Ethical Dairy said:

“The Ethical Dairy is sequestering 5 tonnes per hectare per year, and we are emitting 4.5 tonnes per hectare per year, according to Agrecalc. If I sell that 5 tonnes of carbon credit, I am no longer net zero. I do not understand how the industry can sell its carbon credit without becoming carbon positive.”—[Official Report, Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee, 24 November 2021; c 14.]

The chair of the Scottish Land Commission has said:

“We have had a number of concerns raised recently from people across different land use sectors and by stakeholders of the Tenant Farming Advisory Forum about the pressures farmers and crofters are facing to sign over carbon rights.

This is a fledgling market and there is a risk decisions are being made without full awareness of the implications for individual land managers. I would encourage landowners and land managers to exercise caution when considering transferring carbon rights or options until there is greater clarity over issues such as ownership of the rights and the need to retain them in offsetting their own business emissions in the future.”

I know that Eilidh Mactaggart said that the industry is a fledgling one, but is that not all the more reason to ensure that we get this right?

I will interrupt you on that point.

Given what you have just said, do you believe that we should have land grades as the prerequisite for what will be planted? Are you suggesting that good-quality arable land should not be used for tree planting? Are you seeking specific grading of land for specific investments?

I am sorry, Eilidh, but can I—

That goes back to my earlier point to you. Dieter Helm mentioned having a type of trust fund organisation that makes such investment decisions. You said that you do not have the expertise to deal with that—I get that—but that raises the question of what we are trying to achieve. We want to achieve net zero and a return for investors, and we want to be able to keep people on the land. It seems to me that there needs to be a mechanism for us to bring all that together.

That is just a statement; it is not a question for you, Eilidh.

You have raised something that I had not thought about. I had never heard of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. I assumed that the act was about foot and mouth when you said that it was from the early 2000s.

The 2004 act is there, and we currently have the Coronavirus Act 2020. I go back to what you said about the need to look at having some sort of public emergency act after this is all done and dusted. Coronavirus has affected not only people’s health. Should we have looked at a broader picture and used the 2004 act? The pandemic has affected business, freedoms, poverty and every aspect of society. Would it not have made more sense to use the 2004 act, which relates to civil contingencies, rather than creating an act that relates to health?