Chamber and committees

Yes.

Amendment 513.

I do not have much to add. Rent reviews are quite an important and, I imagine, quite a contentious part of the bill. I am pleased that the cabinet secretary is willing to work on many of the amendments that have been lodged, so I will not press or move mine.

I have some concerns about amendment 297 in relation to the difference between “similar” and “comparable”. I will support it today, but more information might need to be provided before stage 3.

I will not press amendment 545.

Amendment 545, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 297 moved—[Mairi Gougeon]—and agreed to.

Amendment 298 moved—[Mairi Gougeon].

Yes.

Can I move the amendment?

I will first address the comments that you made, convener. Payment might be made to the owners of the land, but if lines go above a tenant’s land, the tenant gets no payment at all, and the lines impact how they use that land. If the energy operator wants to access the land, for example, there is an impact.

There is also an impact on what farmers might want to do underneath the lines. Farmers who I have spoken to have raised concerns about whether they are allowed to operate high machinery underneath the lines. I realise that there is guidance from the Health and Safety Executive, but that is quite old now and there are concerns.

Mark Ruskell asked whether amendment 379 is just about electricity lines. Yes, it is, but what he said suggests that I might consider further amendments at stage 3.

I understand what Mark Ruskell says about the environment, but what cost to the environment? A lot of people are very unhappy with the amount of power lines that they see crisscrossing our country. They think that that is a huge cost to the environment that nobody is questioning. It is right that we do that. It is also right that we argue for proper compensation for people who are affected.

I will not push the amendment today.

Amendment 379, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 380 not moved.

Before section 8

I would like a bit of clarity on amendment 501. Am I right in thinking that it would mean that a near relative could make a complaint, even if the tenant themselves did not want to make a complaint?

I will first address the comments that you made, convener. Payment might be made to the owners of the land, but if lines go above a tenant’s land, the tenant gets no payment at all, and the lines impact how they use that land. If the energy operator wants to access the land, for example, there is an impact.

There is also an impact on what farmers might want to do underneath the lines. Farmers who I have spoken to have raised concerns about whether they are allowed to operate high machinery underneath the lines. I realise that there is guidance from the Health and Safety Executive, but that is quite old now and there are concerns.

Mark Ruskell asked whether amendment 379 is just about electricity lines. Yes, it is, but what he said suggests that I might consider further amendments at stage 3.

I understand what Mark Ruskell says about the environment, but what cost to the environment? A lot of people are very unhappy with the amount of power lines that they see crisscrossing our country. They think that that is a huge cost to the environment that nobody is questioning. It is right that we do that. It is also right that we argue for proper compensation for people who are affected.

I will not press the amendment today.

Amendment 379, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 380 not moved.

Before section 8

Amendment 379 is simple—I think that it is—in that it gives more power to the person who is leasing land and makes sure that they have a say on power lines crossing the land that they lease. How they use the land might have to change once power lines are installed, so they are definitely an interested party and I feel that they should be involved in giving consent for those lines.

I move amendment 379.

Amendment 429, in Rachael Hamilton’s name, aims to make more practicable implementation of the 50-hectare rule that is set out in proposed new section 67G of the 2003 act. Some larger landholdings have had a programme of land sales over a number of years, and if the bill’s provisions had been in place, they would have made the process more difficult by increasing the time for such transfers to take place or blocking them altogether. That cannot be the intention of the proposed new section.

When the owner of a large landholding is negotiating voluntarily with a number of buyers for various plots, that would trigger prior notification notices under proposed new section 46C of the 2003 act. When some of the transfers are above 50 hectares, that would also then bring the total area that is being sold within the bill’s lotting provisions, which would cause a further prohibition on any of the sales until the lotting decision is made.

If areas above 50 hectares were required to be contiguous with a larger landholding, that would meet the objective of reducing the concentration of ownership but would still allow separate sales, each of more than 50 hectares around the edge of a landholding, for example, but not in the vicinity of each, without having to worry about triggering the lotting provisions and, therefore, holding up sales to sitting tenants or communities.