Chamber and committees

I apologise to you, Presiding Officer, and to everybody present for my unacceptable lateness.

Following the SPCB’s announcement regarding the interim position on the Supreme Court ruling, the executive committee of the Public and Commercial Services Union’s Scottish Parliament branch expressed its concerns about what it said was a complete lack of consultation with the recognised trade unions. The SPCB claims that it is consulting the unions, but I am told that that is categorically untrue and that the trade unions have not been consulted on the interim position. When will meaningful consultation take place with the trade unions on that position?

The Scottish Government does my constituents in the north-east no favours by making promises that it will not keep. If the First Minister is serious and has been serious for several years about the use of that technology in that site, why did the ScotWind leasing round award seabed rights for the MarramWind wind farm on the very same site as the Acorn project? What is he doing to remedy that?

I thank the cabinet secretary for her response, which Rhoda Grant will respond to. I am sure that she will be in touch to discuss the issue further, and she is aware that there are later amendments that seek to address some of the issues that she was looking at. On that basis, I withdraw amendment 381.

Amendment 381, by agreement, withdrawn.

Section 8 agreed to.

Schedule

Thank you very much, convener. Good evening to the committee and the cabinet secretary.

Amendment 381 would ensure that land transfers in key rural areas contribute to small-scale farming opportunities, which supports the bill’s overall objectives and rural sustainability goals. It would insert more equitable and productive land use in crofting and smallholding regions; introduce new obligations for landowners in certain areas of Scotland to create crofts or small landholdings when land is transferred to a new owner; and modify both the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1993 and the Small Landholders (Scotland) Act 1911.

For crofts, when land in crofting areas such as the Highlands and Islands or other designated regions is sold or transferred, the new owner must apply to the Crofting Commission to convert part of the land into a new croft. That would ensure that land sales in crofting regions actively contribute to croft creation.

For smallholdings, the amendment would require the Scottish ministers to create regulations providing that, when new landowners acquire land, they must seek to constitute part of the land as small landholdings. The regulations would follow the affirmative procedure, which means that they would require parliamentary approval.

I move amendment 381.

Ambulances are a lifeline at a time of desperate need, but figures show that, so far in 2025, more than half of all ambulances in Scotland have been stuck on hospital forecourts for more than 45 minutes. In one of those was my constituent, who, after having had a stroke, spent seven hours overnight in a sweltering ambulance, with no food or drink, waiting for a bed in the Aberdeen royal infirmary. A spokesperson for NHS Grampian said that that was regrettable and apologised, but the fact remains that it is an institution at stage 4 that is facing sustained pressure and has the lowest number of beds per head of population in the country. What is the minister doing to support NHS Grampian to increase capacity?

As a high-protein sustainable food source, Scottish venison should be available to everyone. However, I have heard reports of land managers burying deer rather than allowing them to be processed to feed the nation. What action is the Scottish Government taking to prevent wealthy landowners from blocking venison for the many?

I will start the sentence again.

By removing the requirement for landholdings to border each other, that would ensure that large landowners of multiple estates across the country would be in the scope of the bill. That would ensure that the bill fulfils its goal of disrupting concentrated, national-level patterns of land ownership by the few. Taken with amendments 43, 47, 122 and 125, amendments 140 and 145 would therefore remove loopholes on contiguous landholdings and would include aggregated landholdings.

The intention is for the thresholds to be adjusted only downwards. Therefore, my amendment 171, in the same manner as amendments 109 and 133, would amend the bill to specify that the regulations

“must not increase the number of hectares ... that land must exceed”

in order for the obligations or prohibitions to be imposed on the land. Therefore, amendment 171, taken together with amendments 109 and 133, would ensure that thresholds cannot be revised upwards.

I will speak to amendments 6 to 9 in the name of Ariane Burgess. I have long campaigned for more democratic land ownership and a practical 500-hectare threshold. That was central to the consultation on my proposed land ownership and public interest (Scotland) bill. Amendments 6 to 8 seek to reduce the threshold definition of large landholdings, and the purpose of amendment 9 is to insert an islands criterion. The amendments would reduce the lotting limits from 1,000 hectares to 500 hectares, which would make the powers apply to land that exceeds 500 hectares and land that exceeds 50 hectares as part of a large landholding exceeding 500 hectares. I am fully supportive of those amendments, as is my colleague Monica Lennon.

Yes, I will leave it there.

Amendments 140 and 145 seek to ensure that aggregated, non-contiguous landholdings across Scotland fall under the definition of a “large holding of land” when applying the prohibitions. As with amendments 43 and 47 and amendments 122 and 125, which were debated in previous groupings, non-contiguous landholdings that are over the threshold limit will not be affected by the bill. By removing the requirement for landholdings to border each other, that would ensure that large landowners—[Interruption.]

Amendment 359 allows ministers to make a lotting decision on the basis that the lotted land will be put into crofting tenure. That provides the ability to increase the number of crofts available. We know that there is a waiting list for crofts, and we know that crofts provide the opportunity to grow food and provide a house site for the crofter to build a house to live in.

Rhoda Grant’s amendment 360 is consequential to amendment 359. It extends the provision for ministers to explain their decision with regard to lotting to similarly explain their decision with regard to lotting for crofts.

Rhoda Grant’s amendment 361 allows ministers to have regard to local food production when making decisions about lotting and creating new crofts. We need to encourage local food production, and the amendment would help to encourage that within communities. Amendment 362 is consequential to amendment 361 in that it includes a definition of “crofting counties”.

Rhoda Grant’s amendment 363 ensures that lots or new crofts do not impinge on current crofts and common grazings.