Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
I welcome everyone to the fifth meeting in 2002 of the Justice 2 Committee. We have apologies from Duncan Hamilton.
The main item of business this morning is the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill, but there are a number of other matters on the agenda. Members will be aware that, as part of our evidence-taking process, we planned to make visits to Lewis and Gigha. I know that, because of the bad weather, the trip to Gigha did not take place. However, the members who were supposed to go managed to salvage the event. For the record, we will hear brief reports from members.
I was on the abortive visit to the island of Gigha. Unfortunately, the weather took a turn for the worse after having been comparatively calm when we set off. Having driven at high speed from Tarbert down to Tayinloan, we found that the ferry had been unable to get out of Gigha and that we were unable to make the trip. That was extremely disappointing, because we would have gained a lot from the visit.
In an effort to rescue the situation, we arranged a meeting with representatives of Highlands and Islands Enterprise and I put on record our appreciation of the co-operation that we enjoyed at that last-minute meeting. We returned to Lochgilphead and had a lengthy and detailed discussion, not only about the Gigha project but about other aspects of the bill. The meeting was very interesting. I was a little surprised by some of the evidence. One of the HIE representatives did not feel that investment by landowners would be inhibited by the inclusion in the bill of the crofting community right to buy. That is contrary to evidence that we have taken elsewhere. It was also interesting to hear views on the definition of communities and on how, from Highlands and Islands Enterprise's perspective, communities might be more clearly identified.
I think that we rescued some value from the trip. Once again, on behalf of those who were there, I express our appreciation to the HIE representatives for making themselves available so willingly and for providing a not insubstantial lunch at the last moment.
All's well that ends well. George, I believe that you managed to visit Gigha on 1 February.
No, we did not. Once again, stormy weather on Friday prevented Jim Wallace and me from getting across. The ferries were off for a good part of the day. The islanders were disappointed that members of the Parliament could not get across to look at what had been going on.
I will highlight some of the issues that are raised in the paper on Gigha. The fundamental problem with the Gigha buy-out was the lack of time to go through all the various processes. The biggest challenge that the various bodies involved faced was informing the community of its options. At our first meeting with the islanders, when I raised the idea of the buy-out, there was a great fear of the unknown. The islanders in favour were certainly not in the majority.
However, over the following six to eight weeks, we got a lot of information out. The exchange visit to Eigg was the turning point. On that visit, the Gigha islanders saw for themselves an example of a community that had taken control, was making a success of things and had undergone a huge change in attitude towards its ability to manage its own affairs. The visit reinforced for us all just how important the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill is, especially the part that delays a sale to allow all the necessary processes to be gone through—finding whether the community wants to go ahead, debating how to do things, deciding where funds will be raised and having a vote to confirm that a majority is behind the plan. That takes time, and one of the problems with Gigha was the short time scale.
If there are no questions, let us move on to the visit to Lewis.
The group of us who went to Lewis saw many interesting things. We spoke to the local council about its attitude to the bill. In particular, we identified the fact that it foresaw a role for the council as the body that would register an interest in land. It believed that it would be useful to register an interest in land on the whole island. That runs counter to the proposals in the bill as introduced.
We spoke with the trustees of the Stornoway Trust, which is the longest-established of the community-owned enterprises. It is not a limited-liability company—which, under sections 31 and 68, is the only option that the bill provides for—but a trust, and the argument that a trust is a perfectly viable alternative to such a company seemed pretty compelling. There was some considerable food for thought in that.
The trust raised some access issues in relation to the running of commercial events on its property. We also learned that it is successfully developing salmon fishing, under its own aegis, on a small river. Those issues also relate to our consideration of the bill.
It is interesting to note that the community had had the opportunity to purchase the Valtos estate on the west coast of Lewis some 20 years earlier. At the time, however, the community did not have the confidence, skills or support to progress with an offer. Only in the past year or so, when a supportive landowner worked with the community to help them to buy the estate, has that purchase taken place—very successfully, I think we could say.
Finally, we visited a fishing estate in the centre of Lewis. The estate covers about 22,000 acres and a considerable number of rivers and lochs. It is owned by a consortium of private individuals and is focused around a sporting lodge. It was useful to sit down with people with fishing interests and discuss some of the concerns that had been raised elsewhere. We would probably conclude, at least from the evidence that we gathered in Lewis, that there would be little benefit to a community in buying into a given fishing. That is because the owners of the fishery would already work closely with the community, the traditional rights of grazing would remain accessible to the community and the community would be able to access the fishing anyway. Members on the visit felt that that situation was likely to map across to other cases.
On a related but different matter, I think that we were all appalled to discover that it costs £280 to fly to Stornoway, given that we can fly to Dublin, a similar distance away, for £10. That issue, however, was outside the remit of our visit.
It is fair to say that that point was raised once or twice in various conversations with islanders. That is a concern for them and you are right to raise it.
I will add a few things to what Stewart Stevenson has said. It was interesting to meet Simon Fraser, a Stornoway solicitor, whose firm had acted for the buy-outs on Gigha and Eigg. He gave valuable insight into the difficulty of determining what a community is in the context of the community right to buy. He said that, in his opinion and from his experience, it is more important that the community should be able to define itself. We touched on that question last week and it was useful to hear about it from Simon Fraser.
On a personal note, it was useful for me, as someone who comes from the central belt, to visit a place such as Stornoway and to see what goes on at the estates that we keep reading about. Both the Valtos estate and the Stornoway Trust, although they differ greatly in how they were formed, seem to be very successful.
As Stewart Stevenson said, we were reminded that the opportunity to purchase existed for people living in the parish of Stornoway and throughout Lewis before the Stornoway Trust was formed. However, even 20 years ago, people did not have the confidence to make use of the right to buy. That theme runs through our discussion of the community right to buy—the issue is not as straightforward as one might assume. It is important that communities feel prepared and able to take on the responsibility for landowning. It should not be forced on them, but the benefits of community ownership should be there for all to see and we should encourage it.
Thank you for your report. Stewart Stevenson has something to add.
I failed to bring to the committee's attention an important point about our visit to Simon Fraser in relation to the articles of association of the company that bought Gigha. Sections 31 and 68 of the bill, which require particular provisions to be included in a company's articles of association, would prevent that company from being registered as a charity. The company that bought Gigha has a form of articles of association that permits it to be registered as a charity. That has considerable economic and practical benefits in relation to matters such as VAT and stamp duty.
That was one of the points that I wanted to add. Simon Fraser made the important point that a body that registers an interest in land should be able to have all the advantages that go with that status.
Our visit to Lewis was excellent and gave members an opportunity to see in practice the effects and benefits of community ownership. I have no doubt that the part of Lewis that has prospered most over the years is the area that is managed by the community, through the Stornoway Trust. People are moving into that part of Lewis. If anyone had doubts about the benefits of the community right to buy, our visit to the Stornoway Trust should have put those to rest. The trust is a superb example of how the right to buy can benefit communities with an interest in land.