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My understanding of the Bew review—George Burgess might come in with more clarity and detail—is that, over a period, hill farmers in Scotland were being paid less than hill farmers in other areas of the UK. You will remember the campaign that went on for a number of years to try to get parity in area-based payments. That campaign went to and fro for a number of years. I cannot remember the exact figure, but I think that about £120 million was identified that should have come to Scottish farmers but was held by the UK Government.

The Bew review was done largely through Jim Walker—he did the negotiation—and the funding that was identified through the review was then allocated to the Scottish Government. That was back in Fergus Ewing’s time as cabinet secretary. Those conversations were going on, and I remember that there was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing between the Government and the National Farmers Union Scotland about how that money should be allocated. My understanding is that some of that money was allocated to try to create a funding system that would allow farmers to buy capital projects. I do not think that the £61 million is entirely related to Bew; it was money that could not be allocated because farmers could not get access to the equipment that they needed at a particular time: the raw materials were missing. There is a bit of confusion about what the £61 million is and what the Bew review was doing.

The final read-out from the Bew review is not yet clear. I think that some of it is still to be implemented by the UK Government, but George Burgess will give far more clarity than I can.

Clearly, that would be our position, but it is not where we are at the moment. We need to deal with the immediate problems and work out what we want to do in the longer term.

The point that you have touched on is right, because there is no one focus at the moment. There are areas in which we need to find solutions, and I am open to looking at any potential solution to ensure that we have a cohort of young vets coming into the industry and that we are dealing with the issues that we have now. If there are particular areas that are causing us problems, I am open to looking at all of them.

I have met the ministers from Northern Ireland and Wales, who think that we need clarification, too. That said, I doubt that we will hit the 31 October deadline—it is unlikely at this stage that that will happen.

I keep coming back to the fact that we are trying to reset the relationship between the UK and devolved Governments. The clear message from all three devolved parts of the UK is that we really need clarity on the issue and that it has to be fixed.

I will add just one minor point. In my discussions with Food Standards Scotland over the summer about the increase in fees, one of the issues highlighted by FSS was the fact that the UK Government has raised the earnings threshold to £48,000. That has added considerable cost, which is having to be passed on.

As the cabinet secretary has laid out, we can, I hope, reset the relationship. There is a meeting taking place on Monday, and I hope that we can start proper negotiations on how to get over some of those problems, as they are definitely having an impact on Food Standards Scotland.

However, a lot of good stuff is going on, too. As George Burgess has just outlined, a new cohort of vets is coming into the vet school, which I visited earlier this year. There is a job to be done in talking about what a fantastic industry veterinary medicine is and in encouraging our young folk to get involved in it.

We are still looking at all our options. As you know, a member’s bill has gathered support in the Parliament, and I do not think that we will be pursuing a licensing scheme until we see how that bill progresses through the Parliament. For a long time now, the committee has been looking at the member’s bill and at greyhound racing, and I would therefore be keen to get the committee’s views and hear your considerations. Mark Ruskell’s bill will go through the process, so we will see how it develops and take it from there.

May I add a tiny point, convener?

It should be noted that the relationship among estates, landowners, keepers and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service is a very good one. Despite the difficulties that were experienced in taking the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024 through Parliament, that relationship is strong and stakeholders are working together. I accept that the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service will want to have all the equipment that it needs to tackle wildfires, but, as Ms Grant well knows, remote and rural communities rely on local people to be part of such efforts. That relationship is one that we need to continue to foster and nurture.

We are looking right now at what we will do about whether or not we license the track.

What licensing brings is a level of external scrutiny, which will provide data that could potentially lead to what you are looking for, which is a ban, if it were found that the proportionality of those injuries showed that there was an on-going problem. If you take a licence away from somebody and they can no longer race, that is effectively a ban.

The licence would be an additional measure of making sure that every welfare requirement was put in place to make this as safe a sport as possible for the people who are involved in it and for the dogs. The licence would give us more oversight, so that we could ensure that it was it being done properly.