Sir, – I often take time to read the columns of your paper and make sure I keep up to date with the hot topics of the day. Last week's edition was interesting given the unveiling of the Tories 'new' rural policies.

I should say from the outset, that I sit on the Rural Affairs committee beside Rachel Hamilton (the Tory spokesperson) and by and large we do get on, despite our political differences.

But when she makes claims like 'we are the only party standing up for rural Scotland', I am never sure whether I should just laugh at that, or scream at the sheer hypocrisy and political opportunism.

I would like to try and not be political but sometimes that becomes very difficult given some of the utterances from Rachel and her ilk. I guess it must be hard for them to try and get any sort of traction with the electorate so they try this kind of thing as they try to hang on to what they see as their traditional core vote.

But the promises they make, continuously try to paint over the key issues and long-term structural problems the Westminster Tories have created.

Brexit damage has been colossal and is going to grow as new policies bed in and take hold. Whether it’s our soft fruit, veg and berry producers having to scale back production, or plough millions of pounds of product back in because they cannot get workers to pick it.

Even if they could harvest, as our egg producers recently highlighted, they are at the mercy of supermarket power, which drives down prices to producers under the full view of an adjudicator that does nothing to protect producers because the Tories made it toothless.

Or the protections our pig farmers needed to give them reassurance that their herds were safe from African swine fever as Westminster continued to fail to bring in the necessary border checks, while at the same time being out of the EU veterinary surveillance scheme monitoring the movement of swine fever and other infectious diseases. None of those things are mere sound bites, these are hard facts.

Rachel talked about ring fencing funding for the sector. That’s great, but how much will they ring fence and from which funding pot?

I ask this because Westminster Tories have given no assurances, despite repeated requests from the Scottish Government, for a guarantee of multi-year funding, or indeed for any funding post 2024.

It was one of the central points Jonnie Hall made at the NFUS Roadshow talks they have delivered across the country.

Some 97% of the funding comes from Westminster under the UK spending review, so if they give no reassurance of funding, any policy developed by the Scottish Government could be seriously undermined if Westminster don’t deliver.

Farmers are frustrated at the pace of policy development in Scotland. I accept that to a point and I can understand the desire for information sooner, but it’s crucial the Scottish Government get this right, rather than emulating the shambles of ELMS down south.

Unlike Defra ministers, our Mairi Gougeon has promised no cliff edges and that food production is at the heart of our policy development going forward.

The Tories keep making these 'bold new' claims that they would deliver what the Scottish Government have already committed to, while simultaneously defending their London government who did the exact opposite.

They dropped farmers off a cliff edge, gave no assurances around food production and continue to fail to commit the long-term funding needed by the industry.

They have cut the rural funding pot since Brexit and what did the Scottish Tories do to rebuke their colleagues, Lord Hannan of Kinsclere or the UK Government’s Minister for International Trade, Lord Johnson of Lainston, when they gave their view to a House of Lords debate that New Zealand lamb was better for the environment than home grown lamb? Nothing.

Their silence on this and their endorsement of Free Trade Agreements, which offer our beef sheep grain or dairy sectors nothing but harm, their endorsement of UK Internal Market Act and the UK Subsidy Control Act, both cited by NFUS as potentially devastating to our sector, all add up to the question, at what point are the Scottish Tories actually going to stand up for Scottish farming?

I very much look forward to helping develop our new funding policy as it travels through the committee that Rachel and I sit on. I am sure there will be issues we disagree on, but there will be others that we do agree and I hope for a much more collegiate and co-operative atmosphere than there has been in the past.

Jim Fairlie, SNP MSP for Perthshire South and Kinross-Shire.