Reform’s plan for farming, fishing and rural Scotland

THE QUALITY OF SCOTLAND’S LARDER has a worldwide reputation and accounts for twenty per cent of the UK’s food & drink exports. But the farming sector is under pressure like never before and is not supported by the metropolitan SNP.

To protect farming, Reform will reform the Farm Payments System and the Less Favoured Areas to support the active farmer and include the whole farm area on IACS maps to count towards space for nature currently taken from productive land.

It will provide grant funding for farmed land improvement, including fertility, drainage and fencing. It will also encourage maintenance and creation of hedging and tree lines through the restart of the fence and hedge grant scheme.

Further, Reform will incentivise young people into the industry, supporting abattoirs with apprenticeships to grow that workforce.

It will maintain import standards and block illegal meats coming in, and maintain Scotland’s premium reputation through Quality Meat Scotland and Scottish Quality Crops while ensuring it is quality- and welfare-based, not ideological.

Reform will also replace carbon audits with practical, outcome-based measurement.
Finally, it will scrap the Scottish Land Commission, while retaining the Tenant Farming Commissioner.

our fishermen have been let down by successive UK governments

Scotland’s fishing industry is vital to our food security, but our fishermen have been let down by successive UK governments. First, through the UK-EU reset, giving away twelve years of access to waters for nothing in return.

Second, through the allocation of the £360 million Fishing and Coastal Growth Fund “consolation prize” leaving Scotland with less than eight per cent of the Fund despite accounting for sixty per cent of the catch.

To protect fishing, Reform will develop the next generation of fishermen through apprenticeships, while stopping any future offshore wind farms which harm our fishing grounds and migratory birds.

It will roll back state electronic snooping on board Scottish trawlers and reduce bureaucracy which is strangling the sector.

Support for the Scottish Fishing Safety Group will be strengthened, and fishing opportunities for Scotland’s fleet will be optimised through annual negotiations and international agreements.

Scotland is famed for its great natural beauty. Our natural environment attracts tourists from across the world and gives Scots a great place to live and work. The metropolitan SNP has lost the trust of rural Scotland through policy decisions that have harmed great swathes of the countryside.

To protect rural Scotland, Reform will stop poorly managed forestry and rewilding schemes and develop a long-term plan for planting extensive native woodlands across Scotland. It will halt massive solar and battery farms.

Reform will stop plans to phase out the use of oil boilers in rural households.

It will support rural communities by maintaining traditional country sports, and support outdoor recreation, especially walking, climbing, snow sports touring, cycling, paddling and horse-riding with accessible paths.

Reform will tackle rural depopulation by supporting self-build and small-scale developments through a revised planning system and investing in rural infrastructure, including broadband expansion.