Meeting of the Parliament 04 March 2026 [Draft]
Rhoda Grant said that those people should have been prioritised. I remind the member that applying to the scheme was not—and was never meant to be—a guarantee of funding for the priority groups, who still had to meet the scheme’s objectives. I see Rhoda Grant shaking her head at my point. The objectives of the scheme were about investing in what we were trying to achieve in relation to our climate and nature restoration targets, and we made it a priority to encourage the priority groups to apply for the fund.
As I said in my initial answer to Willie Rennie, we are looking at the scheme to work out why people did not understand the forms that we were asking them to fill in. By doing that, we will, I hope, get them to fill in the forms and put in applications that are eligible.