Chamber and committees

It is the number of agricultural holdings that will be affected that concerns me. Although not all agricultural holdings will be in scope, the number that will be affected has tripled from 285 to 874. The issue is not just the pressure that that will put on our farming communities, but the pressure that it will put on the land and communities commissioner, who will have to review all the land management plans. Do you think that they will have the capacity to look at all the plans, now that the threshold has been lowered, given the number of plans that will come forward?

I will briefly pick up on a point that Tim Eagle made. When we think about landowners, we might think of huge estates, but with the bill we are seeing more and more agricultural holdings being brought in that will have to produce a land management plan. If things had stayed as initially intended, only 285 agricultural holdings would have had to produce a land management plan. However, with the amendments that have been made, that will increase to 874 agricultural holdings across Scotland. Given what is happening in the farming industry just now, I think that that goes a bit too far and will have a huge impact on many of our farmers. I completely support what Tim Eagle has been saying and doing. The changes that we have made to the bill have gone much further than was intended, which I think is a negative.

No.

I will go back to the point that the convener raised about potential sale. If you ask any landowner, they will say that everything is potentially for sale if the price is right. How do you see that working? Would it be about whether the land is up for sale?

I want to briefly add a couple of things. I am interested in the discussion about the £40,000 fine. We all agree that that should be a last resort—we do not actually want anyone to be fined £40,000. That is why I was making the point that we need to have guidance around the fines—there could be some sort of sliding scale or something. I hope that that might come through at stage 3 if a fine at that level is agreed today. The move from £5,000 to £40,000 is significant, so I think that something else is required for people to know exactly what they might or might not be hit with.

It is good to hear that the cabinet secretary is not minded to take up the compulsory purchase powers that Rhoda Grant has proposed. We must remember that some of those landowners are not only landowners but major businesses, and there would be an implication if they were to suddenly be compulsorily purchased.

In relation to fines, I am looking for guidance—not in the bill but in the regulations that are coming forward—so that everyone understands what is going on there.

On compulsory purchase powers, the point that I was going to make about major businesses is that they are not only landowners but employers. What would happen to all those people who were employed on an estate? Would they then be transferred across to the Government, under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006? There are real concerns around that. At the end of the day, the commission is working with landowners to ensure that everyone works together and that the land management plans are in place.

Can you give us any details of when that review of community right to buy will be coming forward?

I thank Tim Eagle for taking the intervention. I will be quick. Does he not feel that part of the problem is that the scope of the bill has increased? You spoke about large estates having land management plans and said that you work well with them, but we have increased the scope of the bill. As I said to the cabinet secretary, we have tripled the number of farms that would be included in the requirements from 285 agricultural holdings up to 874. We have included many more people than where we started, which is part of the problem with the bill and the process that we have followed to get here.

I cannot find amendment 181 in my documentation, so I am a bit confused. I cannot see it in the group of amendments on my sheet, but maybe new amendments have been lodged.

I want to pick up on a couple of things. In speaking about the impact that the commissioner will have on the Scottish Land Commission, Tim Eagle made reference to the commission having to cut the advice that it delivers. It would be interesting to hear from the cabinet secretary whether she feels that the commissioner will have an impact on that. If the commission will have to cut stuff that it is already doing, that begs the question why it is doing that stuff now if it is not needed. That seems a bit strange.

Amendment 464, which was spoken to by Mark Ruskell, is something that we can support. Natural capital markets is an emerging issue and it needs somebody to keep a close eye on it.

My intervention is about amendment 347 and the compulsory purchase orders. I am trying to understand the situation. A bank may have lent money and have a standard security for the land. How would compulsory purchase orders work if a bank or another third party was involved?