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The SPA has said:

“Whilst not a registered social landlord, the SPA has undertaken to align itself, in principle, with the requirements of housing associations and local authorities and has committed to working towards achieving the Energy Efficiency Standard for Social Housing ... and the Scottish Quality Housing Standard ... for its housing stock.”

It seems unfortunate, therefore, that the police have been omitted from the SSI. If the matter is being considered further, when would we expect an SSI to come forward on that basis?

South Lanarkshire submitted a short but interesting contribution. It talks about the flexibility or the lack thereof in the SSI. It says that it is important to

“recognise the need to ensure clarity on what is exempt from the tax”

and suggests that

“it may be beneficial to consider some flexibility in this area, particularly as current grant conditions do not cover all property acquisitions a local authority landlord may require to make”.

It goes on to mention particular groups, such as homeless households and Gypsy Travellers. Where is the flexibility in the SSI for local government to take the necessary decisions on specific groups with regard to LBTT and the additional dwelling supplement?

For clarity, are you saying that, by 2028-29, it will be £7 million a year, or are you saying that it will be £7 million up to and including 2028-29?

I will move on to the Scottish Property Federation, which said:

“Tax legislation will rarely cover each and every eventuality and given the potentially high taxation burden of ADS we continue to feel that a power to enable a relief for exceptional circumstances, to be applied on the discretion of Revenue Scotland, could bring additional fairness to the ADS system.”

The Scottish Property Federation went on to say:

“there is something of a missed opportunity to address these wider concerns which we raise.”

What are your comments on that?

RSPB Scotland has around 80,000 hectares of land, much of which has agriculture activities on it. It has said that, historically, the CAP performed poorly

“in terms of directing spend appropriately and offering best value for public money”.

It has said that, if we take the bill forward, we should look at cost benefits, that there have not been any alternative approaches, and that it has

“seen nothing from Scottish Government that suggests such cost-benefit analysis of a range of reform options has ever been undertaken.”

As I have mentioned a couple of times, it looks like a steady-as-she-goes financial memorandum, rather than an opportunity to make significant changes and to look at where we get the best value for money. What work is being undertaken to ensure that we get the best bang for our agricultural buck, given the commitments that we need to fulfil in the years ahead, not least with regard to the climate?

I appreciate that, but this seems to be a case of “steady as she goes”. Is there no thought about how those administration costs could be reduced so that more money could be invested directly in agriculture itself or in innovation for climate change reduction? It seems to me that there is an excellent opportunity to make changes to reduce bureaucracy and to improve efficiency and delivery. I am a bit disappointed that we are just keeping the money the same and that there seems to be no ambition to reduce that by even 5, 10, 15 or 20 per cent. The overall budget for the next financial year has a 4.5 per cent reduction, but there seems to be no consideration here of a reduction in admin costs.

The next agenda item is to take evidence from the Scottish Government bill team on the financial memorandum to the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill. We are joined by Scottish Government officials John Kerr, deputy director of agriculture, rural policy division; Mandy Callaghan, deputy director, agriculture and land transition; Karen Morley, head of finance, agriculture and rural economy directorate; and Ewen Scott, branch head, Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill.

I welcome you all to the meeting. We finished our previous item a lot sooner than we had anticipated, so I apologise for rushing you in a wee bit earlier than scheduled. I invite John Kerr to make a brief opening statement.

If so much is unclear and is still being worked on, how did you come to the figure of £61 million?

When will we have that? It feels like groundhog day for the committee. We keep getting financial memorandums and framework bills—I apologise for the generalised moan, and I know that this is the only one that is your responsibility—and we keep having to ask questions about future resources, how things will be funded and what the secondary legislation will look like. When will we reach a position where administrative issues are no longer, to quote your own financial memorandum, “unclear”?

Over what period? Is that £7 million extra revenue for the Scottish Government or less revenue for the Scottish Government?