Hansard

There are very obvious recipients of the praise in the motion, and we have already heard them being referenced across the chamber. I echo much of what has been said and, like Alison McInnes, I pay particular tribute to the power workers who have battled horrendous conditions over the past week or so to restore services to many rural households. It is all too easy to look at the update emails that we as MSPs have received in recent days and to reflect on the number of houses that were left without power, but we should, of course, consider the enormous effort that went on, in awful weather, to address the situation.

I want to focus on a little-recognised group of people whose efforts in rural parts of our country help to keep Scotland safe and moving when the winter ravages descend on us: farmers. Members around the chamber who represent rural areas will be entirely aware of the role that farmers play in clearing and gritting vital remote rural routes throughout our country. That not only allows residents to travel, but makes it possible for the emergency services to get to remote areas, in inclement weather, when they are needed.

It would be remiss of us not to take the opportunity to highlight that contribution to a wider audience. With the best will in the world, it is unrealistic to expect rural authorities to keep at their disposal sufficient resources to be able to clear every mile of road, however hard to reach, as soon as the snow starts to fall. That is why the arrangements with local farmers are so important. The nature of those arrangements can vary from area to area and between the formal and informal.

It is difficult to pin down exact Scotland-wide figures, but a 2011 survey identified that, out of 28 responding councils, 15 employed farmers on an ad-hoc basis and 13, including Angus Council, Perth and Kinross Council and Aberdeenshire Council, had formal agreements in place. Currently in Angus, 19 farmers and agricultural contractors are working through Tayside Contracts to spread salt and grit and plough snow. That mainly takes place on high-land category 2 rural routes that are treated just before school buses in the morning and category 3 non-priority routes, which are mainly rural routes, but in some cases are town residential routes, across the constituencies that Nigel Don and I represent.

In some instances, the council provides snowploughs to be attached to tractors, although sometimes the farmers use their own kit. The farmer is then allocated a route that they must keep clear, but they can also use the plough for any routes of their own choosing that they wish to clear—that happens.

Farmers I know go beyond that. I am aware of one farmer in Angus who adapted a piece of his own machinery to suck up snow along a track that serves a large number of properties and blow it into a neighbouring field. Of course, we will all be aware of instances of farmers coming to the rescue of motorists who have slid off rural routes into ditches.

It is important to stress the planning and organisation that have gone into Scotland’s farmers being very much part of the response to emergency or severe weather incidents. In 2012, NFU Scotland, Transport Scotland and the Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland produced guidance for both councils and farmers in “The Use of Farmers for Winter Service—A Code of Practice” to provide minimum standards and improve the services that were already provided. Although not mandatory, the code is being utilised widely, leading to greater consistency in winter service engagement between local authorities and farmers.

The code highlights areas of regulatory compliance and risk. I was interested to see in the Scottish Farming Leader’s latest edition an article highlighting the legal issues relating to agriculture becoming involved in such activities.

It is welcome to see that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has relaxed the legislation covering red diesel and that its use is permitted while spreading materials to deal with frost, ice or snow.

A lot of smart thinking is going on out there in our rural communities. Just before Christmas, I was interested to read an article about a group in the Borders that applied for a wind farm community fund grant to buy a tractor with a snowplough and salt-spreader attachments, which local farmers have come together to use. I would suggest that that is a good use of community benefit.

The help farmers provide is not only limited to clearing routes of snow and ice; farmers are often drafted in by the council to help to remove trees that may have blown down in storms or to clear ditches when flooding poses a risk. Therefore, let us please add Scotland’s farmers to the list of those whom we are crediting today.

I note NFU Scotland’s work in conjunction with Scotland’s Charity Air Ambulance and the Scottish Ambulance Service to ensure that call-outs to rural areas are best facilitated. The initiative is designed to encourage rural workers, if they are caught up in an emergency, to be able to pinpoint their exact location through the use of grid referencing. It is hoped that the initiative will be adopted widely by those working on our land so that, when the need arises, casualties or colleagues of casualties can identify their location, which facilitates the swiftest possible response by ambulance services.

The NFUS is providing pocket-sized grid reference cards to all its members and is looking for those to be filled in before the need arises. The cards will note unique landmarks such as lochs, prominent hills, masts, water features, churches, bridges or roads. The initiative is part of the farm safety Scotland partnership—the Scottish Government is a participant—which promotes safe working environments across rural Scotland and tackles a number of issues related to the farming fatalities and injuries that happen each year.

On the subject of farming and the part that the industry plays in responding to emergency situations, I commend the NFUS for its continued lobbying of the UK Government to commit to improving mobile networks across Scotland. The substandard quality of the networks in rural locations can present a health and safety issue when the need to call in the blue-light services arises.