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I will use my convener’s privilege and sneak one in at the end. This question is for Brendan Callaghan. How does Scottish Forestry—I know that you cannot speak for the whole commercial forestry sector—see the national park plans? We have heard that you plant trees on a 30-to-50-year cycle, and you have to work to the UK forestry standard, which is reviewed regularly. How will everything fit together if you are looking to plant in a national park and you have to deliver the national park plan’s objectives? How will that work in practice? Will it put you off planting? Will it potentially disincentivise commercial forestry companies that are looking to invest if they have to follow the plans rather than just have regard to them?

Thank you very much for your time this morning. I know that we started a bit later, but we also took a little bit more of your time than expected. We very much appreciate your contributions.

I will now suspend the meeting for a short comfort break and to allow a changeover of witnesses.

Do you have concerns that your existing role as an environmental watchdog might take second place if you become an independent review body? Will you need more resources, financially and manpower-wise, to be able to carry out those functions efficiently?

I call Elena Whitham.

I want to cover some of the topics that we have just heard about. First, a lot of stakeholders have told us that they see no reason for part 2. They are concerned that it gives the Government broad, sweeping powers that they do not feel are necessary, and they feel that a lot of existing provisions already give the flexibility that the Government is seeking. They were also concerned about the bill’s not including a non-regression provision and that, as we have heard, the overriding objectives have not been clearly defined.

Are you confident that the principles that you have set out in your submission about maintaining

“a high level of environmental protection”

and

“ensuring Scotland keeps pace”

can be delivered within the bill as drafted, or do further amendments need to be made other than those relating to how secondary legislation might be dealt with by the Parliament?

I have just a quick question. We were quite baffled by the reasons that the bill team gave initially for including part 2 in the bill; indeed, the only example that they gave was the ability to digitise EIAs. Could guidance be used when it comes to digitising EIAs, or is primary legislation needed for that?

So, there might be some scope in that respect.

As we have no further questions, I thank Alan Hunt and Neil Langhorn very much for their succinct and helpful responses to our questions and for joining us this morning.

That concludes our business in public, so we will now move into private session.

The second item on our agenda is consideration of the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill at stage 1. Today, we will take evidence from a panel of planning and business representatives. I have a long list of people to welcome to the meeting: Jenny Munro from the Royal Town Planning Institute, who joins us remotely; Jacqueline Cook from the Scottish Property Federation; Sarah Cowie from NFU Scotland; Emily Johns from SSEN Transmission; Stuart Goodall from Confor; Elspeth Macdonald from the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation; Dr Caroline McParland from the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management; and Stephen Young from Scottish Land & Estates.

We have allocated around 90 minutes for the discussion and we have quite a few questions to get through in that time. We also have quite a few participants, so I ask everybody to be succinct in both their questions and their responses. Some questions will naturally need only a yes or no response, so please feel free to give such an answer. Please indicate to the clerk or to me if you wish to participate, but there is no expectation that everybody will comment on every issue, particularly if you feel that the point has already been made or that that part of the discussion does not relate to your area of expertise.

You will not have to operate your microphones; we have a lady here who will do that for you.

I will kick off with a nice, straightforward question. In principle, do you support the introduction of statutory biodiversity targets? What impacts do you believe that the anticipated legal targets will have, in practice, for your sector?

The second item on our agenda is consideration of the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill at stage 1. Today, we will take evidence from a panel of planning and business representatives. I have a long list of people to welcome to the meeting: Jenny Munro from the Royal Town Planning Institute, who joins us remotely; Jacqueline Cook from the Scottish Property Federation; Sarah Cowie from NFU Scotland; Emily Johns from SSEN Transmission; Stuart Goodall from Confor; Elspeth Macdonald from the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation; Dr Caroline McParland from the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management; and Stephen Young from Scottish Land & Estates.

We have allocated around 90 minutes for the discussion and we have quite a few questions to get through in that time. We also have quite a few participants, so I ask everybody to be succinct in both their questions and their responses. Some questions will naturally need only a yes or no response, so please feel free to give such an answer. Please indicate to the clerk or to me if you wish to participate, but there is no expectation that everybody will comment on every issue, particularly if you feel that the point has already been made or that that part of the discussion does not relate to your area of expertise.

You will not have to operate your microphones; we have a lady here who will do that for you.

I will kick off with a nice, straightforward question. In principle, do you support the introduction of statutory biodiversity targets? What impacts do you believe that the anticipated legal targets will have, in practice, for your sector?

I will jump the next question, as I think that we have a broadcasting issue, and move to a question from Tim Eagle.