Seòmar agus comataidhean

As the member will know and the committee will have heard in the evidence session last week, there absolutely need to be mechanisms for bringing private finance and investment into this space. Carbon credits are an established tool, and work is being done on biodiversity credits and so on. They are under development, but the finance that they bring in is absolutely needed. There is no question but that we must have private finance to develop those areas, and that is one of the tools for bringing in that finance.

I do not have any particular comment on that. I am not aware of any particular work in that policy space.

The matter of green lairds does cause concern, to me and to my ministerial colleagues. It is really important that we balance the need for investment in our natural capital with work that we are doing to empower local communities, so that we do not have the situation of problematic green lairds.

A suite of existing measures are in place to mitigate the impact of that rapidly evolving market. For example, in the last session of Parliament, we implemented legislation to extend community right to buy, including the right to buy land in order to further sustainable development. We also introduced a new register of persons holding a controlled interest in land.

Fears were raised at the time that our measures would deter inward investment but, as the member knows, that has not been the case, as we can see from substantial rises in land values over the past few years.

I share the member’s concern around so-called green lairds on the land concerned, and that is why we are putting in place frameworks for ethical investment in land and nature restoration, with private finance.

The development of highly protected marine areas is still under way. We are carrying out a consultation to get the areas in the right places—which was rightly pointed out as being important. There is certainly a challenge in ensuring that we have engaged stakeholders at all the key stages when locating and selecting the sites for those areas.

I turn to the enforcement of HPMAs. MPAs and HPMAs are different beasts. MPAs will have marine management plans in place, which say how the areas are to be used, while HPMAs are much stricter as no-take zones, given the restrictions on commercial activities in those spaces.

I might have to get Lisa McCann or Matthew Bird to support me on the detail of how exactly those restrictions would be enforced.

—the need for private finance for nature restoration is unquestioned.

The finance gap is £20 billion. There is absolutely no way that that can be fully funded from the public purse; that simply is not possible. What we need to do, and what we are working on doing, is to put in place the framework for ethical investment in the places concerned for nature restoration. That means managing the different interests and incorporating community wealth building and local input into the schemes. However, we absolutely cannot meet our targets for the climate and nature restoration without private finance. That simply would not be possible. We have to find a way of doing that ethically that supports communities.

As the convener knows, the pattern of land ownership in Scotland is such that it is largely in private hands, and private landowners have the right to manage their land as they see fit. It is for the Scottish Government to use incentives and guidelines to try to ensure that land is managed in the best way possible and in pursuit of Scottish Government goals, but the use of privately owned land is, of course, the concern of the person who owns it.

The communications between Circularity Scotland, SEPA and businesses are under way and on-going. I think that some of the frustration results from things that are being reported in the media, including the press, which are simply not accurate. The correct way to get the right information that businesses need is to go directly to Circularity Scotland, and we are signposting people to that organisation.

Circularity Scotland is employing a communications expert to support the communications with businesses. It has held workshops throughout the country with businesses to help them to understand their role in the scheme, it has an excellent website, and it has call handlers who can answer phone calls and emails at all hours of the day and night. I recommend that any businesses that are not clear about their role should, instead of reading something on Twitter, get in contact with Circularity Scotland to get the right information that they need.

Whenever the public are asked about such schemes, they are always very enthusiastic about them. Generally, such schemes have broad public support. Schemes like ours work very well in other countries. They are very straightforward and well understood. In fact, people in this country are often nostalgic. They have memories of similar schemes that ran when they were young in which they returned their bottles to get their money back.

When someone buys bottles or cans, the cost of 20p is added to each bottle or can. People can, of course, get that money back when they return those materials. Therefore, there is a net neutral cost to the consumer when they purchase those materials.

What I said we are doing—