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Agenda item 4 is post-legislative scrutiny of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003. Members will recall that we agreed to consider how the committee wishes to proceed with the issue of land reform. We have heard from the researchers who produced the report that was commissioned by the previous Rural Affairs and Environment Committee, and we have received an update from the cabinet secretary on the Scottish Government’s plans. I invite members’ comments.
I do not have a copy of what the cabinet secretary said. I have some background papers and some correspondence from the convener of the previous committee to the minister but not the letter from the cabinet secretary.
That is a good point.
It is not just me who did not get a copy.
A paper copy of the correspondence from the cabinet secretary to the committee was circulated to members at the time, but I will read it out as it is very short.
Are we going to go into specifics under each of those headings?
The third bullet point in paragraph 1 of the committee paper, under the heading “Background”, says that the committee may want to
You are referring to work that our predecessor committee did, convener.
Indeed. I am also referring to the work that we did when we interviewed Dr Macleod and others, who commented on the report that they produced.
I think that I was absent from that meeting.
Their report included recommendations on education and guidance for the public, on proposed legislative change at a statutory instrument level and on proposals for primary legislation if needed. Those were contained in the papers that we discussed on 21 September, and I am suggesting that we convey them to the cabinet secretary for his review group to look at. We can bring the letter back to the committee before we send it to the cabinet secretary.
I would appreciate that.
I was a little bit confused by the papers. Are you talking about the executive summary that was provided before those witnesses gave evidence to us, or does it include the evidence that was given to us at the committee meeting?
I am talking about the executive summary of the report that they produced.
We have further evidence that we took at that meeting, which I presume that we want to incorporate.
I certainly want to do that, as it elucidated issues that we have had concerns about even in the past year. We need to draw all those things together into a proposal that the committee can see before we send it on. We have dealt with it in that way so far, and we need to create a structure that allows us to deal with other matters in a similar fashion so that we have definite proposals to make. I have said several times that that model is a good one.
On the issue of the community right to buy, a lot of detailed stuff came out in the evidence that we took on 21 September on problems with the mechanics of the process. I am keen to see those brought to the minister’s attention. A lot of them can be dealt with fairly easily, but they are considerable barriers to progressing the community right to buy.
Yes. It is up to the Government to come forward with proposals for legislation and, if possible, ways of tackling matters without legislation. It would help considerably if we had in front of us a programme of education, guidance, primary legislation and secondary legislation. I take Graeme Dey’s point, and we will include what he suggested in our letter to the minister.
Just to clarify, nothing in the papers is about what has been put to this committee—it is all from the previous committee.
That is correct.
Given that, can we take you up on your offer to circulate the letter before it is sent off?
We will bring it back for a detailed look before it is sent of.
That is fine. I am perfectly happy with that—thank you.
I will not take it upon myself to interpret the views of committee members without their agreement—in this case. [Laughter.]
I have seen the Donald Dewar paper, but for some reason the land reform paper was not among the papers that were sent to me—but that is fine.
I am sorry about that. We will ensure that you get all the relevant papers in future.
That is okay. It was less homework for me to do, so it was fine.
We have the land register, which does not specify beneficial owners at the present time, to add to members’ thoughts. Companies that get agricultural subsidies are identified, but individuals are not. There is a whole grey area that is of interest in that regard. We can ask the Scottish Parliament information centre to do some work on that.
That would be helpful.
We ought to know how much of our land is registered and how the land register is developed. Most land does not change hands, so there is no reason to register it in the map-based modern system. It will be somewhere in the Register of Sasines from 1600 and whatever. A large amount of land in Scotland has not changed hands, so it is not easy to access information about ownership of land, far less to find out who the actual owners are.
It is quite accessible if you approach the correct office, is it not, convener?
I do not know that that is necessarily the case, but we will get an explanation of the issue from SPICe to inform our discussion.
Would it be helpful to examine the issue of common good land and buildings on such land? We all know of examples across Scotland of bits of land and buildings having been gifted to communities, council set-ups changing and, 50 or 100 years down the line, big local bust-ups breaking out about who owns the land, the buildings on the land or whatever.
It would certainly be helpful. I can assure members that I am dealing with a live issue in relation to land that was given to a community and then sold by a council under a compulsory purchase order for road development. Despite the fact that the land’s original owners were the members of the community, the land that was deemed surplus to requirements was also sold.
Convener, you are right to point out that there are common good-owned farms in the Borders and perhaps, when we retire, I will take you to see them.
The subject of land reform itself has not been narrowly defined in the land reform acts that have been passed. I find it interesting that, when the whole process began in the 1990s, Donald Dewar himself pointed out in his John McEwen lecture:
As I understand it, the cabinet secretary has said in his response that he intends to set up a land reform review group in 2012. Given that, presumably, it will deliberate and report publicly, would we as Government policy scrutineers not be better advised to await that group’s report before we decide whether to make further input to suggested land reform measures? I have no problem in suggesting issues that have been raised either by our predecessor committee or with us in this session but, in light of the cabinet secretary’s proposal to establish a land reform review group—which I assume will come forward with its own suggestions—do we need to be particularly proactive in making other suggestions?
I probably agree that we do not have the evidence to say a lot, but we might wish to suggest to the Government that the review group examine certain issues to see whether any other legislative changes might be appropriate.
That was the impression that I got from the cabinet secretary. When I asked him about the issue, he said that he would be interested to hear from the committee about aspects of land reform before his group began its own scrutiny. He might have a lot of ideas of his own, but I think that Elaine Murray has summed up my own view about feeding our own ideas into the process. If there are issues to raise, we should do so.
I concur with Elaine Murray’s comments. It would be interesting to examine the issue of allotments, because quite a lot of people are finding it difficult to access land on which to grow their own food. Indeed, given that demand for allotments is increasing in communities, it might be useful to ask SPICe to find out what kind of people are experiencing such difficulties in different parts of Scotland.
That is the sort of interesting issue that people were not thinking about 10 years ago. The problem of getting hands on land is very much of the time both in the towns and in the countryside and is probably very much tied up with land planning and zoning. We should certainly ask SPICe to investigate the issue further.
When we discussed the subject before, we discovered that there were still problems with right of access. Although the issue has not been bullet-pointed in the paper, I would like it to be brought to the cabinet secretary’s attention.
Indeed. The report that was prepared by Calum Macleod and others contained recommendations on access and, before we send anything to the cabinet secretary, we will have to summarise all the points in our letter, which will be discussed by the committee. The issue that the member has raised will be taken on board. I think that we have discussed quite a number of the issues but, if we have missed any, members should bring them up when we discuss the letter.
We can find out under whose remit the issue correctly falls.
That is fine.
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