Chamber and committees

I will in a moment.

I think that any fishers who are watching the debate want to hear about the practical measures that our parties and Governments will take to support them, so that situation is a shame.

[Made a request to intervene.]

I do not think that anyone is saying what Mr Carson has just said. The point is that, when a fund is devolved, there are procedures in place for that to happen, and it would not be right for the Scotland Office to intervene in intergovernmental negotiations. I see Mr Carson shaking his head. There is definitely a way forward, but I do not think that it serves any of our communities for us to point the finger at one another. I have said, and members on the Labour benches have recognised, that the fund has been allocated in a disproportionate way. What I have not heard is any contrition or any acknowledgement that the Scottish Government has let our communities down by not having the foresight that was needed. It is very easy to criticise in hindsight a decision that has been made, but our communities have the right to expect the Scottish Government to have its head in the game.

I hope that we will hear from the cabinet secretary in her closing speech how we can work together, given the unanimous support across the Parliament for the fishing industry. I do not think that we will get unanimous results on the motion or amendments, but that does not mean that we cannot continue to discuss the subject and work together outside this debate. However, that starts with respect for one another during debates. Just today—like every other member, I think—I received a revised and updated code of conduct from the Presiding Officer. This afternoon, I was disappointed to see one member use his speech to make personal attacks on members of other parties and to goad members. I do not think that that serves either our constituents or the issue at hand.

I know that the cabinet secretary wanted to intervene, but I am sorry that I have run out of time. I will conclude there.

It is a great privilege to close this debate for Scottish Labour and to speak alongside my comrades Rhoda Grant and Richard Leonard. I start by paying tribute to everyone who has engaged in the land reform process. Any success in the bill that will diversify land ownership in Scotland is the collective effort of everyone who responded to the consultations, everyone who provided expert advice evidence and everyone who challenged the Scottish Government to make the bill count. That work will continue, because it must.

Scotland is now prey to mega lairds, private corporations that buy up land for the benefit of portfolio shareholders and investors. Their accumulation of land, wealth and power is often dressed up as climate friendly or environmentally responsible. Let us be clear: it is not.

Take Oxygen Conservation, whose stated business is supposedly to help fight the climate and biodiversity crises. It has quickly taken ownership of numerous Scottish landholdings and estates. Most recently, it bought up BrewDog’s failed Lost Forest estate, which has taken its total holdings to nearly 20,000 hectares. However, its extractive business model and inadequate community engagement have raised alarm bells among land reform experts. A revenue model that is based on polluting carbon credit sales will not deliver what our land, climate and natural environment so desperately need. Aggressive acquisitions and the quick flipping of land as a portfolio treats one of our most priceless common goods as a cheap commodity to be traded by the wealthiest.

That is why it is right that, under the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill, some large landholdings will be required to produce land management plans to show how they intend to manage and develop the land. I truly hope that those modest changes make a difference. However, because of the Government’s refusal to accept my amendments to lower the threshold and introduce a presumed limit on ownership of 500 hectares, more large landholdings will be left out of the scope of the bill than will be included in it. Instead, the Scottish Government has taken a blinkered approach to ownership and aggregation of landholdings. Concentrated land ownership is a nationwide issue, yet the Scottish Government has refused to take a nationwide approach to aggregate land holdings.

Gresham House is now the second-largest private landowner in Scotland, thanks to 244 separate landholdings across roughly 74,000 hectares. That kind of superscale land ownership will barely be impacted by the bill, however, as only a handful of those 244 fragments are over the 1,000-hectare threshold. That is why I am proud that my amendment to review whether the size of the areas of land included in the bill needs to be reduced was passed yesterday. I look forward to seeing that review take place.

The examples of Oxygen Conservation and Gresham House demonstrate the inadequacy of Scotland’s current system and how the Scottish Government’s bill—while welcome—will not go far enough. Both examples show how private corporations will always seek private profit before public good, even while claiming that they are acting in the public interest. That is why it was so important to have a forward-facing public-interest assessment of buyers of land in the bill. It is deeply disappointing that, even after months and years of scrutiny, evidence and amendment, the Scottish Government did not accept that.

Large-scale and corporate land ownership cannot contribute to action on inequality while its decisions on land ownership and land management remain focused on extracting wealth. Instead, we need land ownership that works for people, not profit. The Land Reform (Scotland) Bill was an opportunity to challenge the current pattern of land ownership and to create a fairer, more accountable and more democratic system of diversified land ownership. It remains to be seen how much of an impact its provisions will have but, given what was left out of the bill, it seems like yet another missed opportunity from the Scottish Government.

Environmental groups such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds have highlighted the high financial costs for removal of conifer seedlings and seed rain. As things stand, NatureScot and other environmental restoration groups must use already stretched budgets to mitigate the environmental damage that is caused by the negligence of private companies. There is concern that, if the bill does not address that issue, it might unintentionally further embolden big polluters. Does the Scottish Government support the principle that the polluters must pay for the environmental damage that their industry causes?

I press.

Scottish Labour supports amendment 206, which would update the definition of “peatland” in the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024. We have repeatedly raised the issue throughout the parliamentary session, and we see no reason why that cannot be done today. If the Scottish Government is not able to support this reasonable amendment, we will expect to hear why, as well as how the issue will be addressed—perhaps through the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill, for example.

I have two amendments in this group. Amendment 89B is an amendment to the review amendment lodged by Martin Whitfield and would make an express provision that the review must consider the appropriateness of the land described in each of the part 1 provisions, with particular regard to the size of the areas of land. In effect, it would look at whether the 1,000 hectare threshold was still appropriate. Amendment 89D is a variation on amendment 89B and would require the review to have particular regard to whether the size of the areas of land should be reduced.

Members are already familiar with my arguments in favour of lowering the threshold and my attempts to do so in the bill, so I will not repeat myself tonight. However, I note that we have heard frequently from the cabinet secretary that the Scottish Government requires further evidence to lower the threshold. My hope is therefore that we can agree to amendment 89D to ensure that the review of the provisions includes that crucial point.

I will listen carefully to the cabinet secretary’s response to both amendments. If she is minded to support amendment 89D, I will not move amendment 89B.

I thank all members who have taken part in today’s debate. As my Labour colleagues Sarah Boyack and Rhoda Grant have already made clear, we will support the bill at stage 1 today, because we recognise the issue at the heart of the bill, which is how we protect Scotland’s 90,000 species, 11 per cent of which, as we have heard from Jackie Dunbar, are threatened with extinction.

Scotland’s level of biodiversity intactness is in the lowest 15 per cent in the world, and the Scottish Government has failed to meet its environmental targets. In the past decade alone, 43 per cent of Scotland’s species have seen a decline. Biodiversity loss is, of course, a global issue, but I think that we would all agree that Scotland has a moral and ecological duty to be a world leader in reversing that decline.

For the bill to meet its goal of reversing biodiversity loss and restoring a healthy, stable ecosystem, it must be amended in several key areas, not least in relation to the issues with part 2 that have been highlighted by Labour members and others today. From what we have heard, if the Government does not lodge serious considered amendments to part 2, there will be proposals to remove that part altogether. Therefore, I hope that the cabinet secretary takes heed.

Although we have heard from Tim Eagle and some of his Conservative colleagues their concerns about whether there is a need for the bill, his citing of the failure of previous non-statutory approaches has, I think, made a strong case for bringing forward statutory targets and for part 1 of the bill.

Particularly important to the debate is how we protect and restore our natural environment and native flora and fauna. The latter are threatened by the devastating impact of invasive non-native species, as Beatrice Wishart highlighted very aptly today. In its 2025 “Inquiry into public financial support for tree planting and forestry”, the Royal Society of Edinburgh highlighted that Scottish Government policy and practice does not go far enough in recognising long-standing problems caused by invasive non-native species.

For example, as we have just heard, Sitka spruce, which accounts for 43 per cent of Scotland’s woodlands, is a major threat, because it dries out the peatland ecosystem and outcompetes native species such as—I will probably say this wrong—sphagnum moss, and no, I am not its nature champion. Additionally, when Sitka is planted on peatlands, there is a risk that carbon sequestered by the land can be released. Yet that ecologically destructive species is currently exempt from the provisions of the Wildlife and Natural Environment (Scotland) Act 2011—an exemption that is not based on environmental science but is driven by the profit motive in the commercial forestry industry.

If I or one of my constituents released Japanese knotweed into the wild, even accidentally, that would be illegal, but private companies are, in effect, allowed to commit widespread acts of ecological vandalism that degrade vast swathes of Scotland’s environment without fear of being so much as fined, all in the name of profit. That fact demonstrates the need for Scotland to tighten its legislation around the 2011 act and to look at reworking exemptions for invasive non-native species.

We also need to look at the cost to the public purse of Government subsidies for invasive non-native species such as Sitka spruce, which accounts for 50 per cent of commercial planting in the UK. The destruction of our natural environment to line the pockets of shareholders cannot be allowed to continue. Instead, Scottish Forestry could require that planting schemes include native planting and regeneration and consider the spread of tree seed from non-native invasive species. Actions to consider could include continued monitoring of how seed spread can be reduced and, where necessary, removal of non-native invasive species seedlings. Providing public subsidies to damaging commercial conifer forests completely contradicts Scotland’s biodiversity and environment restoration targets. The Scottish Government should reassess subsidies for coniferous commercial tree planting.

The ethical and financial responsibility for rectifying harm to the environment should rest on the developers and private companies that cause that harm, through the use of a polluter-pays principle, as touched on by Lorna Slater. It is not just we on the Labour benches who are saying that; groups such as Scottish Environment LINK and the RSPB agree. Current environmental restoration efforts, including ones by NatureScot, are using their already overstretched budgets to mitigate the damage to our natural environment that negligent private companies cause. According to RSPB research, the financial cost of removal of conifer seedlings and seed rain in flow country peatlands is already in the millions of pounds. A polluter-pays principle would address that directly through the creation of statutory requirements for the proper management of invasive non-native species. Successful implementation would create a robust framework for liability for environmental damage.

I want to be clear that Scottish Labour, like others, supports the general principles of the bill. However, if Parliament is serious about reversing the trend of biodiversity loss, we must be clear that the current iteration of the bill needs significant amending. In that way, Scotland can become a true world leader in combating the nature crisis.

As I pointed out to Mr Lumsden at stage 2, a 500-hectare threshold would exclude 97 per cent of agricultural holdings. It is not accurate to say that Labour is anything less than supportive of our vital food production sector.