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I thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to clarify the intended consequences of the instrument, taking into account the comments that were made by the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, and by this committee at its meeting last week.

The primary aim of the instrument is to ensure full cost recovery for services relating to the surveillance and inspection of animals and animal products for residues of veterinary medicinal products relating to the national residues control programme, or NRCP, which is managed by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate, or VMD, across Great Britain.

On anticipated costs, the policy note accompanying the regulations states that the annual cost of delivering the NRCP currently costs around £5 million per year, which is forecast to reach around £8 million per year by 2028. The increase is due to a rise in the costs of procured services that are necessary to deliver the programme such as sampling, testing and consumables.

Without the proposed revisions to the current charges that NRCP participants pay, it is forecast that there will be an underrecovery of the costs of the programme by £1.2 million in the current financial year, and the deficit is expected to rise to £3 million per year by 2029.

It should be stressed that the increase in cost is the estimated cost across Great Britain, so Scotland will contribute less to the overall increase, given that there is a smaller concentration of participants here. Currently, more than 500 companies across the various sectors are included in the NRCP.

I want to pick up Rhoda Grant’s point at committee last week about whether an island impact assessment was considered. As this is not a new policy, strategy or service that is likely to have an impact on an island community that is significantly different from the effect on other communities, it was considered that, on balance, no assessment is required.

By way of conclusion, I reiterate that the NRCP is a statutory programme and is designed to help protect human health by identifying unsafe residues of banned substances, veterinary medicines and contaminants in products of animal origin before they enter the food chain. The NRCP helps to protect human health. It also provides assurances to the UK’s trading partners about the quality and safety of exported food products of animal origin. The programme helps to support international trade, which is worth around £12 billion to the UK economy per year.

I am happy to take any questions, with my officials.

The fundamental thing that we have to remember is that this is a statutory programme that we must carry out order to protect human health. The testing system is about making sure that no residues go into the human food chain.

I completely take on board all of your points about how difficult this is, and I have already agreed to meet other members to talk about what more we can do to help the more remote—again, I want to stop using that word—island communities with regard to slaughtering provision. However, I do not think that the increase in charges will be the clincher here. In any case, we have to carry out the programme to ensure that we are protecting human health, as much as anything else.

Absolutely.

The policy will change and develop as we go along. The SSI purely provides the mechanism to continue the payments, whatever they will look like. Whatever the scheme will look like—I am not going to say anything about that on the record in case people expect that to become the scheme—we are absolutely committed to continuing to support LFASS. I do not say that on the basis of the programme; I am purely talking about the principle behind it. Whatever the scheme looks like, the SSI will allow us to continue to make the payments.

Emma Harper and Rachael Hamilton have both mentioned new entrants. I think that I have said to the committee before that I am absolutely committed to ensuring that we do as much as we can to get new entrants into farming. I was desperately trying to do that myself, so I know the barriers to it.

As a result, the programme for government asks public bodies with public land to look at how they allow new entrants to get on to that land. This is purely the start of that process. I do not know what the scheme will look like, but we are in the early stages of saying how we will get young folk and new entrants into the industry and how we will support them as we move forward.

If the quantum has to change, we will have to change it, but we will not know that until we have certainty about the UK funding that comes to the Scottish Government.

It is the date that was picked.

There will be on-going reporting. This particular reporting year is being rolled into the requirement under the 2024 act. As that comes into effect, there will be further reporting. I will let James Muldoon clarify the detail of that, because he has far more understanding of it.

No, we kind of need to get this done.

I will let James Muldoon clarify that point.

That is what I am talking about, too. That level will stay the same as it stands.