SIR, – At the NFUS autumn conference last week, delegates were given an insight as to how the committee system works in the Scottish parliament by Sir Ed Mountain MSP and Graham Dey MSP, and the scrutiny that bills are given by the committees. It was a very interesting session and showed how cross party scrutiny and consensus work well for us, the electorate.

The afternoon session featured a presentation by Secretary of State for Scotland David Mundell.

Mr Mundell wanted to focus on 2 questions:

1) what do we want as an outcome post Brexit?

2) how do we want to achieve it?

There were 3 key areas that he felt needed to be focussed on.

Market access; on that we agree, a point Jim Mcclaren raised and which I also raised back in March 2014 in my letter to you headed Three Tiers of Scotch Beef. Having access and selling to as broad a market across the world is undoubtedly a positive thing which is patently do-able with Brand Scotland. So far so good.

Targeted support; one of my questions to Mr Mundell: "Why no guarantees beyond 2020"?

In reality, any promises they have made are hollow. They know that by delaying the triggering of article 50 till March of next year means they are still bound by EU rules till at least March 2019, and given all the other major issues that are to be dealt with, it would make sense for them to have at least another year to sort out the new system of support. That is, of course, if there is to be any. And before all the usual suspects come back braying in hysterics, I make that point because Mr Mundell himself made that point. He said that there were many other very well-organised and funded groups who are making the case to direct funding to them and away from agriculture, and that the government were minded to favour the strongest cases for support. So think about that. Where are the vote winners? Is it supporting rich landowning farmers? Or is flood alleviation, environmental protection, wildlife reintroductions, the NHS or a host of other promises made about how they will spend the 350 million pound a week? Again, this isn't me raising the question, Mr Mundell said everything is "up for grabs"

I made these points before the 2014 referendum when they were hypothetical, some of you will remember the Stirling debate with the previous Secretary of State for Scotland in Stirling, but they are now a reality and require our full attention.

If you add to that equation the fact that the UK now needs to start stacking up its bargaining chips ( EU citizens who work here aside) to be able to create new trade deals, what trade offs will a U.K. Government put on the table? I'll leave that question there for you.

The third point Mr Mundell made was cross U.K agreement. In itself that sounds like a very sound approach from a trading point of view. However, when you start to dig into what that means the alarm bells should be ringing here in Scotland for at least three reasons.

I asked if he agreed with the moves in the Tory party to 'de devolve' post Brexit, areas like agriculture in order to ensure no distortion of markets? He categorically said there would be no 'un devolving' of powers, BUT, "discussions would have to take place to establish where the best place was to take decisions for the best results across the United Kingdom". Slightly paraphrased here but that was his angle, repeating what he had already stated in his initial speech. Sounds to me like the same beast with a different name.

I asked him why he hadn't responded to Calum Kerr MP's letter handed to him about getting cross party support to have the convergence money debacle dealt with and that money repaid to Scottish farmers? He gave an assurance that the decision will be made by the end of this year, note, decision made, no guarantee of a positive outcome for us.

I also asked why ministers in Westminster were still sitting on the decision to repatriate levy money? My point being that Brand Scotland QMS etc would need all the help it could get post Brexit to market ourselves to new markets.

By this point, the Secretary of State was getting irritable because once again he could tell us nothing, other than he hoped it would be resolved soon.

Take those three points,

There is a possibility of competences being removed from the Scottish parliament and taken to Westminster, including agriculture.

There is little or no movement on convergence money coming back to Scotland and levy money we should be using to promote Scottish produce is stuck in a ministers desk down in Westminster. If you have faith in the Tory led Westminster government, who are likely to be in power for the next ten years, then you can rest easy. If you don't......?

Jim Fairlie

Kindrum Park Farm

Perth