Official Report 696KB pdf
Welcome back. Our third agenda item is an evidence session with the cabinet secretary regarding the decision not to proceed with plans to designate a Galloway and Ayrshire national park. I again welcome Mairi Gougeon, the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands, and her officials.
We have allocated around an hour for this item of business, and I invite the cabinet secretary to make a short opening statement.
I do not have much to add at this point and am happy to move straight to questions if the committee would prefer that.
Thank you. Emma Harper will kick off.
Cabinet secretary, can you lay out the reasons why the Scottish Government decided not to progress with the proposal for a Galloway national park? What is the timeframe for progressing alternative recommendations for the area? The ideas at the forefront of my mind are the dark sky park, the forest park and, of course, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization biosphere.
I hope that I was able to outline in my announcement and my statement to Parliament a couple of weeks ago why we reached the position that we reached.
We have been through an extensive process. The statutory process, in which we appointed NatureScot as the reporter to advise on the proposal, commenced last summer. We received that report, in which the main recommendation was that we should not proceed with the designation but should, instead, look to build on existing structures within the overall area.
The NatureScot report outlined significant opposition to the idea of a national park. The overall figures from the consultation showed that 54 per cent of people were opposed to the national park and that 42 per cent supported it, but, when local responses alone were considered, that first figure rose to 57 per cent of people being opposed to designating Galloway as a national park.
The NatureScot report detailed a number of concerns that were raised throughout the consultation process. I know that there were concerns from specific sectors such as renewables, agriculture and the forestry sector. On the basis of its consultation, NatureScot made the recommendation that was the basis for our decision.
I will stop there for now.
One issue that came out above the rest concerned the timescale for organisations to come forward in the bidding process and the capacity within areas to produce successful bids. There is no legislation at all for that, so we may need to look at addressing that by using the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill to make amendments to the existing National Parks (Scotland) Act 2000.
In some areas, there appeared to be an overreliance on using volunteers to bring forward proposals. We heard in evidence that it took up to seven years to reach a consensus about how the national parks in Loch Lomond and the Trossachs and in the Cairngorms would be developed and that businesses, locals, individuals and non-governmental organisations came together to look at how they would see a national park being developed. However, in Galloway, that timescale was significantly shorter.
The main issue was that NatureScot played two separate and distinct roles, one of which was to make recommendations as a reporter to the consultation while the other was as the natural heritage adviser to the Scottish Government. That led to a lot of people suggesting that NatureScot was biased in its role as reporter in providing the Scottish Government with professional advice as well as trying to carry out an effective consultation. How did you weigh up that advice, considering NatureScot’s two roles? Would you consider again an amendment that would provide for an independent reporter to provide the consultation responses for future designations?
There is quite a lot to pick up on, convener, so I hope that you will allow me to address all of your points.
On your last point, about NatureScot’s role as a reporter, it is important to note that that is what is set out in the 2000 act. I received two sets of advice from NatureScot that are very separate and distinct. The advice from NatureScot in its role as a reporter was based on the wide range of consultation that it had undertaken and the views that it had heard, and its report was produced on the back of that. Separately, we received advice from NatureScot in its other role, in relation to the other elements of the proposal, which advice was distinct. As I said, NatureScot’s role as reporter is set out in the legislation.
Another important report that was published at the time of my parliamentary statement the other week was the report from the Scottish Community Development Centre, in which it commented specifically on the role of NatureScot as a reporter. It is important to outline that the SCDC was appointed to independently assess the work and engagement that NatureScot had undertaken. The SCDC felt that NatureScot had
“managed to navigate the process with a commendable level of neutrality”.
The SCDC picked up in the report that there had been criticism of NatureScot, but it found that that would be expected in any
“high-profile public consultation”.
It also noted that
“few other organisations would have had the capacity and expertise to manage such a complex and large-scale”
exercise. It went on to say that NatureScot was the
“perfectly acceptable choice”
of reporter for the Scottish Government to make, given that it is the agency that operates on environmental issues. It is important to outline that in this context.
I will pick up on some of the other points—
Sorry—to make it easy for me, as well as for you, I will just come back in.
Even if the report suggested that NatureScot acted in an unbiased way or as well as it could, from the outset there was a perception that NatureScot simply could not be unbiased. Ultimately, NatureScot promotes and has a huge role in the two existing national parks. Surely it would be more appropriate to choose a reporter with appropriate skills in conducting such inquiries or processes, through which they could set out their recommendations independently of NatureScot. That approach would have immediately taken away some of the suspicion that the process was, from the outset, going to be biased. The fact that the organisation that carried out the overview considered that NatureScot acted unbiasedly did not matter to the people who, from the start, thought that it was biased.
Would you consider having an independent reporter in the future, to remove that perceived bias?
I am not going to rule anything out. It is important that we consider the outcomes of the consultation, the whole process and how we can improve going forward. We must learn lessons from that—there is no question about it. I am following what is set out in the legislation. You would expect me, as a Government minister, to do that.
I appreciate the concern, which was raised with me early in the process, including directly by you, convener. It is important to outline the process that NatureScot undertook and to recognise that it was a significant undertaking. That is where the independent assessment and the views on NatureScot’s process are important.
Other organisations were brought in in relation to the engagement exercise. It is important to highlight the work that led to those findings of neutrality.
Okay. Thank you.
Could I come back to some other points that you raised about the process, convener?
Certainly.
Notwithstanding the time that the process took to designate our first two national parks in the Cairngorms and Loch Lomond and the Trossachs, which you outlined, I would say that the current process has been significant. I do not think that the Galloway National Park Association has been arguing that it has been a quick process. In fact, I remember meeting representatives of the association when I was first appointed as a minister, in 2018, and I note that it has been building its campaign over the intervening time.
10:00In 2021, we set out that we were looking to establish a national park. We had a parliamentary debate in 2022, in which there was broad parliamentary support for establishing another national park, and many members were telling us to do that as quickly as possible and to designate more than one national park.
The process that was established was intended to be community led, and it was consulted on at various points, so it is not necessarily fair to suggest that it has been a rushed process. The steps that were taken at each stage to consult and to get the appraisal criteria right were all very important.
You have raised the really important point that, although the process to designate a park is clearly set out in the National Parks (Scotland) Act 2000, the process of how to nominate is not outlined in the act at all. We had tried to develop and bring forward a process that would be built from the bottom up and that came from communities themselves.
On the process, do you think that there should be a firmer vision of the proposed national park at the point at which ministers formally propose it? That is a bit ambiguous under the legislation. There was an attempt to get the discussion going locally—from the bottom up and led by local people. Has that worked? Would it not be better, in a way, to have a much clearer vision at the point of proposing the park? The 2000 act does not explicitly require that.
To be perfectly honest, the whole purpose of approaching it in the way that we did, and the way that NatureScot went about its consultation, was not to go in with a fixed idea. We want the national park to be built by the communities in Galloway. As I also appreciate, however—and as was picked up in the Scottish Community Development Centre report—not having such an approach makes it harder for people to take a view. If people felt that they were against a national park, they were less likely to engage in other questions about what its shape could be or to consider alternative proposals. It is important to mention the Scottish Community Development Centre report, because it brings out some of those issues and challenges.
I did not want to go to any community and just say, “This is the model.” We would then have had accusations that we had come to impose something on people. It was a matter of getting a balance and saying to people, “Do you want this in your area? You can help to design it.” I absolutely appreciate that that approach comes with difficulties, but that was our reasoning for setting about things in that way.
Yes—that is difficult. You are asking people whether they want a national park, but when people ask, “What is it?” you are saying, “Well, you decide.” It is a tricky one.
Another point has been raised with me about guidance and how a suggested area has to meet the criteria under the 2000 act. Does there need to be a bit more guidance on that?
It is a matter of having the flexibility to design the process. As much as how to go about doing nominations was not set out in the 2000 act, the process that was established and the flexibility for us to design the process has represented an important exercise. There were various stages of consultation throughout 2022 and 2023, to consider what the criteria might be and how we would appraise different groups, and looking for nominations from those groups. Being able to design that process—trying to ensure that a bottom-up approach was taken to something that communities actually wanted—has been a positive.
It is also important to point out that local support was a critical element, as assessed through the appraisal process by the expert panel, in determining how to move forward to the next stage and what groups we should proceed with.
There is an opportunity to make amendments to the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill. What lessons can be learned from the national park process that we might be able to reflect in the bill?
There are probably quite a lot of lessons to be learned from the process. I do not think that all of them would require a legislative fix, but if the committee thinks that that is needed, I am more than happy to hear the committee’s view.
The independent assessment has made recommendations on the engagement process and how, if we should seek to engage again, we could improve on that. That is important—we need to take that into consideration.
As I outlined to Mark Ruskell, it has been beneficial to have the flexibility to design a process for the nominations. However, I am more than happy to take on board members’ views if they think that any particular areas need to be addressed.
I was thinking more about lessons in relation to building local support. Obviously, there was not local support in Galloway, but, in the early stages of the process, I was aware that there were several areas of the Highlands and Islands where people tried to build support for a national park designation, and I was surprised at the pushback against that. When we were considering legislating and people were talking about future national parks, there seemed to be a head of steam in favour of national parks, but, suddenly, there was quite a big pushback whereby people in areas where I thought that national park status might have been wanted said that they did not want it.
How should we approach the issue of building local support? Maybe we should also think about how to deal with local concerns, because people have told me that the board would not listen to them. Is that a reflection of how the two boards that we have at the moment are working? How do we make the process more open, get people involved and make them feel that they have a voice on whether they want a national park?
There are a couple of separate issues in that question. There are the issues that can be identified with the current national parks, which you referred to, and there is the issue of how we could look to build community support in other areas at some point in the future. How can we legislate for that or ensure that such support is there?
I think that the issue is partly to do with how we talk about our national parks. There was some misinformation in the campaign in Galloway in relation to what some people felt that a national park would impose. It was not necessarily the case that what they thought would be imposed would have been imposed. There was some misunderstanding about what a national park in the area might mean. An example is that people felt that, if there was a national park, the requirements in relation to planning would be a lot more onerous, but that would not necessarily have been the case, because there is flexibility in the designation process in relation to planning powers and what those might look like for a new national park area. There are issues there.
As far as the national parks themselves are concerned, they do some tremendous work. That came up in our session on the bill, when we spoke about the collaborative nature of the work that they do. They deliver on many of the objectives that we would want to be met—we can all see, I hope, the results of that collaborative work in our areas. However, if there are particular concerns on which people feel that they are not being listened to, I hope that the park authorities would try to address those, where possible. I do not know whether Rhoda Grant has a specific issue in mind, but I would be more than happy to pick that up. Perhaps she has a specific change in mind.
I am simply reflecting what people have said to me, which is that the people who were looking to build a consensus on a national park were not necessarily people who had a community focus. There were groups that were keen on having a national park that had aims and objectives that the community was aware of but that the community felt did not reflect their views. I think that that did not help.
Will a look be taken at having a mechanism that allows communities to come together to discuss a national park proposal very openly without feeling that they are in a yes or no position, which immediately forces them to pick a side, depending on their level of trust or mistrust of the organisation that is promoting the proposal? It seemed to me that it was almost a no-go area for many people from the outset, because of the way in which the putting forward of proposals was being handled.
It is challenging, because, as I outlined in my previous comment to Mark Ruskell, a key element of the nominating process that we went through was to ensure that there was local support. There was no point in taking forward a nomination if it did not appear to have strong community backing.
I do not know whether you mean that we must ensure that the community as a whole is represented but that some areas felt that their community had not necessarily been represented in that process. If so, that is why a key part of the reporting process on the back of that appraisal was to gauge the overall interest across the area and to do a deep and wide consultation to get people’s views. That is where the nominating process and the appraisal are important. In the appraisal for Galloway, I think that it was found that there was quite significant and extensive local engagement in and support for the proposal. That is why it was recommended as one of the areas that could proceed to the next stage.
If there are any particular suggestions from members as to improvements that could be made to the nominating or appraisal processes going forward, I am more than happy to consider them, but we did try to build aspects into the process to ensure that there was community engagement and support.
I think that there was community engagement, but it was about who was carrying out that engagement. Where were the trusted voices? People felt that, the moment someone was consulting them, it was a done deal and that that was the aim of the exercise. Therefore, people either took fright and said no or they were very positive about it. Views became entrenched very early on, and it felt as though there was no open and honest conversation about what the proposal could be, how we could shape it and what input we would have if it went ahead. It almost felt as though we missed a stage at the very start, before having the wider consultation.
Sorry—are you saying that it is the reporter stage and the engagement stages before it that need to be considered?
Yes. Other members will know more about the Galloway situation, but I was very aware of what was happening in relation to the areas in the Highlands and Islands that were putting forward nominations. I felt that people were becoming very entrenched in their views very quickly, rather than being given the opportunity to explore, without any pressure, the nomination and what it would mean for them. Having a stage earlier in the process would give people ownership of it rather than make them feel that they had to make a decision early on.
I would be keen to hear more detailed views on which part of the process should be changed, because the process to get those nominations was very much designed to try to get that support.
Another organisation supported that nomination process and supported local groups in those areas in undertaking the wider consultation and engagement work to discuss the proposal. I would be keen to get clearer views on which part of the process should have changed or how we could have gone about it differently. As I said, the process was very much designed to take a bottom-up approach that did not impose the proposal on anyone.
It was important to say to communities across Scotland, “If this is something that you want in your area, come forward, engage and let us know,” rather than saying that the Government would choose an area and tell communities what would happen.
There is that wider piece, which relates to Mark Ruskell’s earlier point, about what a national park looks like and means, and how it can be different. It is not about having a one-size-fits-all approach across the country. There is flexibility to design something that suits local needs and to have better messaging around that.
The process that we have established over the past few years is about trying to get community support, but we must look back and see what lessons can be learned from it as well as from the reporting process.
10:15
The process went horribly wrong. It is not an exaggeration to say that it was a complete and utter disaster that pitched community against community. The whole process was polarised from the outset.
You said that you failed to set out how the park could be different, and that was one of the issues. Communities judged what a Galloway national park would be like by basing that on the two existing parks, but they were told that it could be, or had to be, different—we will move on to that idea in a minute. They were told that the impact on farming, forestry and renewables would be on a completely different scale from that elsewhere. Why did the Government and NatureScot fail to set out how a Galloway park could be different in practice?
There were concerns that farmers would have some of their permitted development rights taken away, that there would be stronger regulation of commercial forestry or that the national park would lead to far more low-paid jobs and higher house prices. You kept on saying, “Don’t worry about that. It’s going to be different. It’s going to be flexible.” Why did the process fail to set out how a Galloway national park could be different? People just did not understand how it could be different in practice, and that is fundamentally why we find ourselves where we are today.
To be fair, we all took pains to try to explain that. The Scottish Government did that. NatureScot launched the official consultation in November last year, and there were also three months of engagement prior to that to lay the groundwork and to clearly explain that the national park could fit around the needs of the area if that was something that the people of Galloway wanted to see.
I absolutely recognise the importance of agriculture and the dairy industry in the area. The park would have supported the key industries that exist in Galloway.
The engagement was very much part of the process, which takes me back to Mark Ruskell’s point about how to strike a balance between, on the one hand, going in with a clear idea of what the park could look like and, on the other, just telling people what will come to their area. You do not want to be top-down or to go in with an idea that says what you are going to implement, because people will accuse you of forcing something on them that they do not want.
I am more than happy to hear any views on that, but the approach throughout the whole process, starting when it was established, was to ensure that the park was something that communities and local people wanted to see in their area and that they could design it.
We have a number of recommendations from the Scottish Community Development Centre regarding improvements that could be made to the reporting process, as well as recommendations for the future that will be important for us to seriously consider in any steps that we take from here. I also want to hear members’ views of their experiences.
I know that Mark Ruskell and Emma Harper want to come in. I will bring in Elena Whitham first, then pick up supplementary questions.
Some of my questions have been touched on by the convener.
I will say from the get-go that I first heard about the Galloway national park back in 2016, nine years ago. I was a local councillor in East Ayrshire in 2018, when that council took what I viewed as a positive decision to support the national park after doing extensive public consultation on the back of what the Galloway National Park Association was doing.
The idea of the park did end up feeling like a bolt out of the blue for some sectors, including farming, forestry and renewables. We seemed to get to a point where those sectors became galvanised after suddenly realising that the park might have an impact on them and feeling that their voices had not been heard in the mix. I do not think that anyone can apportion the blame for that to the people from the Galloway National Park Association, because they set out their vision and took it out to people and they consulted quite extensively from 2016 onwards.
Having listened to the other members around the table and yourself, I am wondering how we can ensure that sectoral issues and any further proposals that affect real people on the ground who are farming or who are part of forestry or renewables do not get to the stage where it feels as though people are getting entrenched. There was a groundswell of support, but all of a sudden it got to a crunch point where it felt as if there was not, and some sectors felt that they were not being heard. How do we deal with that? How do we overcome challenges from those sectors to get to a positive conclusion?
It is about continued engagement with them throughout the process. I know that I have talked a lot about it today, but the Scottish Community Development Centre’s report sets out some of the issues that it saw with the process and how to avoid similar situations occurring again in the future. One of its suggestions is about bringing together a local steering group early in the process that can advise, help with that engagement and ensure that there is wider feed-in, so that people do not feel alienated by the process but feel that they are part of the conversation and that it is not something that is being done to them. We need to pay attention to a lot of the points that were raised in that piece of work.
I do not think that any of us would want to end up in a similar situation. We have to be able to have these discussions and debates without ending up as polarised as we have seen and experienced. We certainly want to avoid that in the future.
Do you think that other things had been happening at the same time that ended up making this feel very messy? The Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill has been going through, as have been the changes that we spoke about in the previous question session and the changes that are happening with agricultural payments. The convener also mentioned that permitted development rights might be coming into question. Do you think that a lot was going on and it felt as if the national park would be something else on top, so the vision could not be seen?
I appreciate that that could have been an issue and a concern for people. We have just had the session on the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill. From my perspective, the work that we are doing on agriculture would not have been impacted had the proposal gone ahead and vice versa, because farmers would have still received their payments in the same way, regardless of whether they were in or out of a national park area.
I do not think that the aims of the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill and what we are proposing would have fundamentally altered the proposal that was being considered for Galloway. So much is happening across the Government at the moment that I appreciate that people on the outside looking in could view it that way but, from my perspective, those things would not have fundamentally altered the proposal.
Emma Harper has a supplementary question, and then we will hear from Mark Ruskell.
In the consultation, there were options of boundaries that were to be chosen. Option 1 was the smaller national park area and options 2 and option 3 were bigger and wider. I am thinking about the biosphere boundary, which has recently been expanded to cover the Rhins of Galloway. Was there significant input into the boundary proposals as part of the consultation?
I will also quickly pick up on what Elena Whitham said about other things going on, such as the establishment of the regional land use partnerships, the dark sky park and the forest park. A lot of other stuff is going on already, so I am just wondering about what effect that had on the feedback on the boundary options that were offered.
You are absolutely right about the boundaries. NatureScot had said that, should ministers decide to designate, it would have recommended the smaller core area, as it outlined in its report.
The situation was difficult according to the different reports that came out. NatureScot also outlined in its report that, if somebody felt that they were against a national park, it was harder to engage with them about the different options of what boundaries could look like and what shape governance could take. The boundary choices were informed by engagement with local people and other stakeholders. There were always going to be difficulties with that.
Can you remind me of your second point?
It was to pick up on what Elena Whitham was saying about the regional land use partnership and other activities that were going on. Many people were supportive of the tourism economy, for instance, but the option for the smaller core area did not include some of the dairy farmland. It is interesting that we have ended up with no proposal at all, but many other things have been going on.
Absolutely. That was identified in the report. A key part of NatureScot’s recommendation was to look at the existing structures and mechanisms in the area and to consider how to build on them. Those include the natural capital innovation zone, the work that South of Scotland Enterprise is doing, the UNESCO biosphere, the regional land use partnership, which you mentioned, and the framework on the back of that.
There were reports of some intimidatory tactics at the Galloway meetings, particularly from those who were opposed to the park. I do not know what lessons can be learned from that about how the public narrative plays out. Similar concerns were raised during the earlier bid process about aggressive tactics being used around Scotland. What is the Government’s reflection on that?
It is really concerning to hear that. The independent facilitators, Outside the Box, who were undertaking the engagement work with NatureScot, picked up on that concern and noted some of the behaviour at the engagement events, which was not what we would want to see. We should be able to engage, have a discussion and debate points, as I said earlier, without intimidatory behaviour. People should feel free to express their views, whether they are for or against a proposal.
It comes back to the work that we can do earlier in the process to try to prevent polarisation, so that we can have an open and honest conversation about serious issues and concerns, such as those that were identified during the consultation process. People had legitimate concerns about issues in the area.
We need to be able to have conversations in a constructive way in order to avoid some of the issues that you have described. We have to reflect on the recommendations and move forward in a positive way.
Do you think that there was a heavy reliance on volunteers? I know that some of the volunteers who were working on the earlier bids had to put their heads above the parapet to propose change, at quite a heavy cost to them. It feels as though, for many people, leading a change would put them in a vulnerable space.
Yes, it can be a vulnerable process. I recognise the sheer amount of work done by the volunteers in Galloway and by those who put forward the other bids. I do not, by any means, underestimate how much work went into that and how much capacity it would have utilised.
We tried to support those volunteers and engaged other consultants to support the nominating groups, recognising the burden that the process would put on them. We also aimed to ensure that good quality bids were put forward for the appraisal process. I appreciate the difficulties that you raise and the onus that was placed on the volunteers. It is important that we supported the nominating groups, but I think that it had to be a community-led effort.
My next question is about where the Government will go next with the policy on national parks. Two other bids—Lochaber and Tay forest—met the appraisal criteria. Perth and Kinross Council led an extensive consultation process for Tay forest, which showed that there was a large majority of support for a national park in the area. You said that the rejection of Galloway as a site for a national park focused on the lack of public support. One area has public support and meets the criteria, so what is the future for a national park in Tay forest? It appears to have everything on the table.
We had selected Galloway from that list because it met all the criteria that had been set out through the appraisal process. However, I want to be clear that we set out a process to designate a new national park in Scotland, and, as far as I am concerned, we have completed that process and have come to a decision not to proceed with that designation. I do not want you to think that we will now reopen the process or go back to consider other bids, because we have been through the process and it has been completed. I will not be going back to review those bids or to consider proceeding on that basis.
Generally, we are open to considering the establishment of a national park in the future, but it would be for a future Government to determine how to take that forward. I certainly will not be reopening the process in the time that is remaining in this parliamentary session.
10:30
It sounds like there will be no more national parks for Scotland for the foreseeable future, at a time when lots of national park proposals are being developed in England and elsewhere.
That will be the case for the remainder of this parliamentary session. It will be a decision for a future Government to take in the next session.
What about the issue of adjusting the boundaries of the existing parks? The Tay forest bid was situated between two existing national parks. Evidence has been brought forward that suggests that the existing national park boundaries do not easily fit with the geography of the area or, indeed, with a lot of the issues around economic development, tourism and regulation of the environment. Would the Government be open to adjusting the boundaries of the existing two national parks, or is that off the table?
It is not a proposal that has been put to me or that I have been asked to consider, so I would not be looking to consider it at this stage. If a proposal came forward, it would have to undergo significant consultation and engagement. I have not been approached about that, so I am not looking to consider it at the moment.
It came up in the discussions around the Tay forest bid, because the boundaries of that park would be contiguous with the existing two national parks. There are communities that perhaps have a better understanding of what a national park looks like, because they can look to their neighbours and see exactly what is happening. Would you be open to a conversation around that if, say, Perth and Kinross Council or others came forward and said, “Look, there is a case now to adjust the boundaries in some way”?
If anybody wants to have that conversation with me, I am more than happy to have it, but I cannot make any commitments at this stage that I will look to do that, because of the processes that would potentially be involved. Again, I have not received a specific proposal in relation to that.
It appeared right from the outset that the timescales for the designation of the Galloway national park were going to be incredibly difficult to meet. The only work that had been done for quite some time was by the Galloway National Park Association, which was done before I was an MSP, and although it was very commendable, it became clear quite early on in the consultation process that it was deeply flawed. Almost £350,000 was spent on that failed process. Should you not have considered halting the process earlier, given that it was so clear, even back in December and January at the turn of this year, that the process was ultimately doomed and would be very polarising?
I do not think that there would have been much point in stopping the consultation midway through. It was important for that exercise to reach its conclusion, so I would not have agreed to a proposal to halt the consultation when it was only halfway through its established timeframe.
We have heard that the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee recommended that there should be an independent review of national parks to inform future decisions. We heard that suggestion throughout the consultation, and you have touched on it yourself. There was misinformation around some of the challenges that the current national parks have. Would it not be sensible to have an independent review of national parks? We know that they have annual reviews, but, effectively, the park authorities mark their own homework. Although the Government has oversight of that process, there is a lack of confidence that the reports reflect the true situation in national parks. There are still questions about whether parks deliver on their nature targets and for local communities.
Would you consider an independent review? If one had been in place prior to the Galloway national park proposal, the arguments would not have been quite so polarised and there would not have been accusations that misinformation led people to their conclusions about whether there should be a new park.
In some ways, it is all very well to say that with hindsight now. However, I hearken back to the parliamentary debate that took place in 2022, at which every party in the Parliament unanimously supported us in looking to establish another national park. No concerns were raised at that point about an independent review or that the national parks were not delivering on their stated aims and objectives, so that was not considered at the time.
As I responded to the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee, I am not considering undertaking a review at the moment. I believe that our parks are accountable and transparent and that they deliver on their objectives. As I have set out and as I have said previously, there is oversight from ministers. There is also a role for the Parliament in that respect; if there were to be any concerns from the Parliament, the committee could undertake an inquiry into national parks. I do not feel that there is a particular need to review them at the moment, so it is not something that I am actively considering.
It became clear that the misinformation and distrust were about some of the main issues: that house prices would be higher, that there would be less affordable social housing, and that there would be an impact on agriculture and forestry. There was also misinformation about whether renewables would be allowed to expand or would be more controlled in a national park. The fact that there was such misinformation suggests that there was no trust in the national parks and their performance.
An independent review would have taken away a lot of the doubt, speculation and fears at the outset of the designation process. I am not sure why you do not appreciate that point, because you have been telling us about misinformation all along. There is a lack of trust, and an independent review would certainly put that to bed, because the figures would be there and they would be independently reviewed. Moving forward, if future Governments were to be minded to designate a national park, it would be clear what the real picture is. At the moment, that trust does not exist, regardless of whether national parks are producing annual reports or whether they are being scrutinised by the Government or potentially by the Parliament.
I appreciate the points that have been made in the requests for a review, but, as I have outlined, it is not something that I am actively considering at the moment. We have just been through the designation process and I believe that our national parks are accountable and transparent in relation to what they deliver. If the Parliament wanted to do a deeper investigation into national parks, that is, of course, within the committee’s means.
If it is the case that national parks are performing as well as the Government believes that they are and that they are delivering what the Government believes that they have been set out to deliver, why was all that information allowed to influence the decision of the people in Galloway?
Sorry—are you talking about any misinformation in the campaign?
Yes. Ultimately, the decision of the people in Galloway appeared to be based on the idea that national parks are not delivering and that they are actually curtailing the ability for areas to be economically sustainable. Again, the view was that national parks just exacerbate problems with the low-wage economy, low-skilled jobs, higher house prices and restrictions on agriculture. If that is not the case, why did that misinformation effectively succeed in persuading the majority of people in Galloway not to back a national park?
People have perfectly legitimate views and it is up to them to express those; I will not suggest otherwise. However, I think that outlining what a national park can do and deliver was very much part of what NatureScot undertook in the pre-engagement work that I talked about. It also tried to provide information and outline to people in the Galloway area that a national park was something that was entirely up to them to design if it was something that they wanted to have in their area.
Okay. As we have no further questions, that concludes our evidence session. I thank the cabinet secretary and her officials for their time this morning.
10:39 Meeting continued in private until 11:36.