I declare an interest as a small farmer.

To ask the Scottish Government whether it considers that the reported £203 million it spent on external advisers to help administer agricultural support payments to be good value for money. (S6T-02447)

The figure that the member has mentioned relates to spend that spans more than a decade. Most of the existing information technology systems that support agricultural stakeholders were developed for the common agricultural policy in 2015. The money has been used predominantly for the submission and processing of rural applications. The system availability for the scheme in 2024 was 99.92 per cent, and £475 million has been paid out so far, with the final total expected to be £555 million. Payment performance has steadily improved, with payments now being made sooner. Over the period, we have paid out about £5 billion in agricultural support payments.

We are not designing our future capabilities based on current IT, but we must provide the industry with stability and certainty as we develop new services.

I remind members that the £203 million is on top of the nearly £180 million that it cost the Government to build the system in the first place. At the current rate of spend, by 2030, the Government will have spent £500 million on an IT system and consultants.

Over the past two weeks, the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee has heard from industry leaders who have expressed serious concerns about the future direction of agricultural policy. Jim Walker summed it up by saying:

“the way of delivering the support payments to agriculture is just not fit for purpose ... The computer system is knackered and has been for years”.—[Official Report, Rural Affairs and Islands Committee, 12 March 2025; c 5.]

Does the minister agree with Jim Walker that this costly system is not fit for purpose?

No, I simply do not agree with Jim Walker’s assessment. First of all, he is not an IT specialist and does not know what is going on behind the scenes. [ Interruption .] I point out to Conservative members, as they barrack me, that, as I have said, 99.92 per cent of payments have been made on time. We have brought forward the payment period, so payments have regularly been made far before the deadline dates. It is normal to spend roughly 20 per cent of the IT set-up spend that was initially spent in the first place.

I know that some members will use a committee session as an opportunity to beat the Government, but the reality is that the system works and is making the payments. The most important thing to our farming community is that the payments get into people’s bank accounts on time and in full.

The Government might have made some payments, but it is costing a lot of money to do that. I do not think that the minister really gets it. Every year over the past eight years, the Scottish National Party has squandered more than £25 million on IT consultancy fees. That money could have been used instead to double the sustainable farming capital fund. There is a lack of coherent agricultural policy, there is harmful new rural legislation and there has been a real-terms cut to the rural budget. In the light of the serious concerns that have been raised not by me but by agricultural leaders at the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee, will the minister spell out what immediate action he is taking to ensure that our essential farmers and crofters will be supported in the future?

I find it ludicrous that the member is saying that we have squandered £20 million when we have been making payments on time and in full every year, well before we were required to do so. [ Interruption .]

Let us hear the minister.

The Government has done nothing other than support the agriculture sector time after time. Every time that there has been an issue, we have found solutions to it, so I find the member’s questions absolutely ludicrous.

We have interest in the question, and I would be grateful if we made sure that questions and responses were concise.

The purpose of the payment system is to ensure that money goes into the pockets of farmers and crofters. The Scottish National Party decided that our agriculture sector deserved that money and that it was worth while, while other parties elsewhere in the United Kingdom decided to take that money off the farmers. Will the minister reiterate how the Scottish Government’s rural payments system has ensured that money gets into our agricultural sector and the rural economy on time and as quickly as possible?

As part of our transparent approach, we publish an annual payment strategy. The targets in each iteration of the strategy have been met, and payment performance has improved year on year. Indeed, we are paying under the basic payment scheme earlier than ever. I would be happy to provide the member with the data behind that in writing.

It is crucial that the sector has financial consistency, unlike what we have seen from the sustainable farming incentive down south. In addition, the Scottish Government provides funding streams to farmers and crofters via the crofting agricultural grant scheme, the croft house grant scheme, the less favoured area support scheme, the Scottish suckler beef support scheme, the Scottish upland support system and the fruit and veg aid scheme, none of which has an equivalent in England.

I remind members of my entry in the register of members’ interests in that I am part of a family farm in Moray.

Does the minister regret that, when Fergus Ewing was the cabinet secretary, he did not scrap the £178 million failed system and implement a new system that was estimated to cost £34 million? Would that not have saved the minister the extraordinary amount of money that he has had to pay in the past 10 years?

I am not quite sure what Edward Mountain is asking when he asks whether I regret what Fergus Ewing’s decisions were a number of years ago. I know that, when he was in office, Fergus Ewing made an exceptional effort to make sure that the system worked. He got the payments out and into the bank accounts of farmers on time, which is exactly what farmers require. What they do not need is this.

The computer system is flawed, as was highlighted in a damning Audit Scotland report from back in 2017. Policy is now being devised to fit the computer system rather than the system delivering the Government’s policy. How will the minister ensure that policy is delivered? Would it be cheaper to scrap it and start again?

I do not think that it would be cheaper to scrap it and start again, because I do not think that there is any need to scrap it and start again. As I have already stated, we are getting the payments out on time. The payments that we are making to the services that are helping to sustain the system are in line with what would be expected for such agreements. The system is doing the job that we require it to do. We will definitely have to update it as we establish new schemes as we go along, but that is no reason to chuck the baby out with the bath water.

At the 12 March meeting of the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee, concerns were raised about the lack of effective implementation and about the constraints that the outdated information technology system created. Jonnie Hall of NFU Scotland stated:

“The biggest single constraint on policy development and, therefore, its implementation ... is the ability to deliver. There is a fundamental issue with the IT system and everything that goes with that.”

With reference to future policy, Kate Rowell, chair of Quality Meat Scotland, said:

“Unfortunately—and this brings us back to the computer system—there seems to be no way of implementing that list.”—[Official Report, Rural Affairs and Islands Committee, 12 March 2025; c 20, 13.]

The minister continually tells us that he listens to the industry. If he is, indeed, doing so, why are industry leaders always wrong while the minister is always right when it comes to concerns about the IT system’s limitations?

I refute the basis of the question. It is not the case that the industry is always wrong and the minister is always right—the fact is that we have a system that we know is working. We know that the system is getting the payments out. We know that farmers are being paid and they are being paid ahead of time. I will repeat that all day, if that is what I have to do.

This attack is based purely on something that the Tories have decided. They have an unwarranted and unjustified attack line on the Government. The payments continue to get made.

That concludes topical question time. I will allow a moment or two for front benchers to organise.