���˿���

We are a bit short of time because previous business went over time. Colleagues, I ask you to roll your questions into one, where that makes sense and is possible. Guests, we want to hear from you, but if something has already been said—

You get the point. It has been a challenging morning.

Thanks for that. Story telling makes things so much more accessible.

I want to go back to Alison McGrory on asset-based versus deficit-based community development. You said that the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act provides guidelines on the approach. Is there not flexibility in that? My understanding is that guidelines are just that and do not say, “You must do it this way”. Do you feel that in the guidelines there is not flexibility to move to an asset-based approach? You made a really good point about building on what is already working. Is there scope there, or does something in the legislation need to be reviewed?

The next item on our agenda is an evidence session on community planning. We will hear about the experiences of health and education community planning partners. This is the fifth session in our post-legislative scrutiny of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. Our inquiry is looking at the impact of the legislation on community planning, and at how community planning partnerships respond to significant events such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the current cost of living crisis.

I extend many thanks to our witnesses for joining us. We are joined by Craig McArthur, who is the director of health and social care in the East Ayrshire health and social care partnership; Alison McGrory, who is the associate director of public health in the Argyll and Bute health and social care partnership; and Alison MacLeod, who is the strategy and transformation lead in the Aberdeen City health and social care partnership. As Alison MacLeod is joining us online, I ask her to let the clerks know when she would like to reply to a question by typing R in the chat function. Craig McArthur and Alison McGrory can just indicate that to me or the clerks. There is no need to operate your microphones, as that will be done for you.

Annie Wells will begin our discussion with questions about the challenges that communities are facing.

We now move to our final theme, which is local and national leadership.

As members have no other comments on the instrument, does the committee agree that we do not wish to make any recommendations in relation to the instrument? Obviously, we are seeking the reassurances that we have discussed.

Members indicated agreement.

Good morning. You have touched on some of my questions, but I will go into them a little bit more deeply. My questions are about the payments and the fact that we have more than half a billion pounds coming—hopefully; I share your concern about the potential cut-off in 2024.

The NFUS has said that it would be in favour of some form of front loading, with an uplift in payments on the first number of hectares, but it remains opposed to capping payments or tapering them down above a certain size of holding. I would be interested in hearing why you would not support capping payments per farm at, for example, £50,000 per farm, which could then free up money to put towards other aspects. You have talked about the central importance of food, but you also recognise that farming can take us forward with climate and biodiversity issues and rural development.

We have heard from the Climate Change Committee, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the UN Environment Programme that there needs to be a reduction in meat and dairy consumption and production in order to meet our climate targets. I know from folks we have had here and others I have talked to that many livestock farmers and crofters are not happy about that. I know that some have taken it to heart and are willing to try diversifying, reducing their herd sizes and supplementing with horticulture, tree planting, peat restoration and other measures. You may not have this figure, but I would be interested in hearing roughly what percentage of your members—you may have a sense of it from the survey—would be willing to explore the diversification that we need. How do we support them to do that in the moving faster mode?

It is interesting that you said that it has not been supported. We had a lack of vegetables on our shelves recently, and I understand that, through glasshouses, we could move towards a lot more production of Mediterranean-type foods. If that was supported, we could increase the size of that sector.

There is a lot in there. We have talked about the just transition, and I think that there is an awareness that work needs to be done to make sure that there are no cliff edges. However, I would be interested in hearing more about what I think you were touching on when you talked about how the payments at the moment are based on area and how there is a need for conditionality. Would we move towards outcome-based payments rather than payments per area?

I was glad you started to answer that, because I was going to ask you to unpack what you meant by “food”. In your response to my questions earlier, I felt that horticulture was getting pushed out of the picture. I want to understand what you mean by food in Scotland.