To ask the Scottish Government whether it will increase funding to enable more trees of commercial species to be planted in Scotland. (S6O-03784)

Despite the pressures on the Scottish Government’s budget, nearly £40 million is available this year to support the planting of a wide range of woodland. The planting of timber-producing species is an important part of that balance and normally represents around half of the new planting in Scotland. Productive species also make up 60 per cent of the restocking that is supported by the forestry grant scheme. Although we are not able to increase funding this year for tree planting, we have introduced flexibility to adjust grant contributions so that existing funding is spread across more projects and enables the planting of more productive species.

The Cabinet secretary will know that our sawmills and panel products businesses contribute £1 billion a year to the economy and provide 25,000 jobs. They can do far more, because we import more timber than any country in the world except China. However, without a continuous, regular and guaranteed steady supply of commercial species, those businesses’ future is in question.

If the Minister wants to know where the money can come from to spend more on trees, I suggest that she takes it from rewilding and peatland restoration of dubious value and that she avoids throwing further millions of pounds on futile attempts to avoid the extinction of the capercaillie, which is surely already the most expensive bird in world avian history.

The member has made a few points that I will try to touch on. There is no getting around the fact—I have been quite transparent about this—that, with the budget that we have for tree planting this year, we are absolutely not in the place that we would want to be, especially when we have been on such a good trajectory on levels of tree planting in Scotland, with 15,000 hectares planted in the previous year. We had a target of 18,000 hectares for this year, which, unfortunately, we will not be able to meet with the available funding. However, that is largely down to the massive cuts that we have received from the United Kingdom Government. There is a 10 per cent cut to our capital budgets overall, which means that we are restricted in what we can do.

The member touched on a lot of other areas. On peatland restoration, our peatland is responsible for about 15 per cent of our emissions, so the funding that we put into developing the industry to restore our peatlands is vitally important. It is also important that we maximise the budget that we have and get as many trees in the ground as possible with what is available.

Scotland’s forestry sector achieved record tree planting last year, but budget cuts will limit new woodland creation to around 10,000 hectares this year. At that level, the sector advises that jobs and industry confidence will be lost and that the infrastructure for planting will shrink, consigning Scotland to years of failure. Given the sector’s £1.1 billion annual contribution to Scotland’s economy, will the Scottish Government provide the £10.5 million of additional funding that is needed to prevent long-term industry damage?

I covered that point in my opening response. If that funding is to come from the budget in-year, I would like some suggestions from the member as to where it could come from, because right now we simply do not have it. However, the important point is that teams in Scottish Forestry are undertaking work this year to maximise the tree planting that we can undertake with the resources that we have available. We are trying to be as flexible as possible within that and ensure that we make the best of the budgets that we have.

Question 5 is from James Dornan, who joins us remotely.