The map and associated wording on VisitScotland.com makes clear the route begins near Carlisle: “The only tourist route that begins outside Scotland, the Borders Historic Route picks up near Carlisle before passing into the lush countryside of the Scottish Borders.”

The route is also clearly signposted where it crosses the Border at J44 of the M6 with brown tourist signs. Of course visitors may choose to deviate from the route and head to Gretna first.

The driving routes and the accompanying itineraries on VisitScotland.com are suggestions to help visitors make the most of their trip around Scotland. With the increased focus on encouraging visitors to see and do more as part of their trip, VisitScotland is keen to see visitors take in more of our country. These routes can be enjoyed by following them from the official start to the official end point or can help visitors in planning a wider journey.

The Scottish Government provides support to land managers wishing to create small-scale woodlands through the Forestry Grant Scheme (FGS). This includes grants for each hectare of new woodland and support for fences and gates, which are often a higher proportion of the cost of small-scale woodlands. More detailed guidance on the financial support to land managers is available at https://forestry.gov.scot/support-regulations/forestry-grants

The Forestry Grant Scheme also includes grant options specifically designed for small-scale projects. The Small and Farm woodland option and the Islands woodland option. Up to the end of July this year, of the 1184 tree planting projects supported, 339, or 28%, were small scale and less than 5 hectares in size. A simpler FGS application process for projects under 3 hectares was also introduced in 2018 and Scottish Forestry works with Woodland Trust Scotland to provide additional advisory support for small scale projects through a team of advisors.

An additional £1 million has been made available to support woodland creation in 2020 from the Scottish Government Agricultural Transformation Programme, to support the creation of more farm woodlands, particularly riparian and shelterbelt planting.

The Scottish Government provides targeted grant support for small and medium forestry related businesses through the Forestry Grant Scheme Harvesting and Processing option. This provides support for activities related to woodland creation and to help businesses adapt and recover from the impact of Covid 19.

Normally around £300k per year is available under this option, but this has been increased to £1 million this year to help the forestry sector respond to Covid 19 and increase sector capacity to deliver tree planting. Support is also provided to the Association of Scottish Hardwood Sawmillers which allows them to provide training and technical support to their membership and other small businesses involved in small scale processing.

In addition, for the first time a new funding agreement with the UK Government has provided an additional £1 million of funding this year to support tree nurseries that supply trees to Scotland. This support is also provided through the Forestry Grant Scheme and available to tree nurseries and tree seed businesses, which are predominately SMEs, in Scotland, England and Wales.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-31492 on 10 September 2020. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-31493 on 10 September 2020. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

Financial support to those farming and crofting in our most fragile and remote areas is a priority for the Scottish Government. It is not possible to circumvent EU rules and reinstate payments to 2018 levels for the 2020 scheme year, which will instead be at 40%. We are currently considering options for the year 2 Upland Uplift part of convergence payments which will provide additional support to those farming and crofting in our less favoured areas.

The Scottish Government have engaged with NFUS and we support their point of view in keeping the LFASS running. The passing of stage 3 of the Scottish Agriculture Bill is the first step in ensuring we have the legal powers to continue all CAP schemes. It is now essential that the UK Government give us clarity of future funding so that plans can be progressed for the delivery of CAP schemes in 2021.

The Scottish Government has put in place over £2.3 billion of support for Scottish businesses across a wide range of sectors to support them during the pandemic.

The Events Industry Support Fund is in place to provide support to businesses or individuals who organise, stage and deliver events. Eligibility was developed with input from the events sector. Where a trader or crafter can demonstrate that they meet the eligibility criteria then would be able to apply for support on the same basis as other businesses or individuals in the events sector.

If a trader or crafter is not eligible for this particular fund then they may wish to consult https://findbusinesssupport.gov.scot/ to see whether they are eligible for any other sources of support.

The Scottish Government considered a range of factors when developing the criteria for the Events Industry Support Fund. This included online forums that EventScotland hosted with geographical and sub-sectoral representation from across the events sector; an events supply chain survey; and with input from the Event Industry Advisory Group, which includes representation from rural events.

The Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband (DSSB) programme has delivered fibre broadband access to more than 950,000 homes across Scotland, with over 31,000 premises benefitting from that investment in Dumfriesshire constituency alone. To date, 76 premises in the Mouswald area have been assisted by DSSB.

However, there were some areas, including in the community of Mouswald, that we couldn’t be reached within the funding and timescales available. An exacerbating factor in Mouswald is that there are some premises within the settlement where build could not be progressed within the timescales available due to wayleave (or access agreement) issues, despite exploring all options to resolve these with the relevant landowners. Seeing agreement being reached on this key issue, to ensure the support of landowners, would be enormously beneficial for the community.

For those remaining properties that were not reached by the DSSB programme itself, some in the area are expected to benefit from build through either the £133 million R100 South lot contract, or will be delivered through commercial coverage. Any properties which are not going to receive investment through these two principal routes, would be eligible for a main voucher – offering a subsidy worth up to £5,000 per premises to deliver a superfast solution at 30 Megabits per second or faster - through the Scottish Government’s Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme (SBVS).