Chamber and committees

I accept that, but the duty to have regard to the good food nation plan would not apply only for as long as it took you to relay the SSI. There might be a short period of time in which the final plan was in place but the duty to have regard to it did not apply, but as soon as you brought the SSI back, we approved it and it went through Parliament, that duty would kick in, would it not?

I now have to try to argue that my amendment is stronger—we will see how we get on.

Part 3 of the bill outlines the aims of national parks. My amendments 314 and 202, 203 and 204 seek to add further aims for national parks, focusing on “strengthening the local economy”. For me, the bill’s proposed changes fail to take the opportunity to deal with issues that really affect rural Scotland, such as housing and the local economy. There seems to be a focus on priorities such as tourism and visitor access over issues such as local farming businesses, to the detriment of the rural economy and the natural environment.

Food production and farming are core to Scotland’s rural economy. They are also key drivers of the local community and landscape management. My amendments 314, 202, 203 and 204 seek to address some of the issues by strengthening the local economy. I would be happy to work with the cabinet secretary prior to stage 3 to get that point across in the amendments.

My amendment 315 works alongside my amendments 317, 318, 319 and 201, which, together, would remove almost all of part 3. Part 3 makes various amendments to the National Parks (Scotland) Act 2000. Stakeholders have said that part 3 of the bill does very little. The proposed new section 1 of the 2000 act introduces some new language that, at best, is clarifying. The so-called reform of the national park aims also makes very limited change.

I have already mentioned key local concerns around housing and the local economy. Importantly, the Government has not taken the opportunity to establish a review of the existing national parks. The parks have been in existence for some time, and it is fair to say that many have raised concerns. A review would allow a full understanding of how the parks have performed, what value they bring to the taxpayer and how we can ensure that they work for the people who live in them and the country. With that in mind, I cannot support making changes to national parks without having that full picture of how they have been working.

My amendment 316 seeks to add a new section to the bill, after section 5, to require a policy statement on national parks. The amendment would require Scottish ministers to publish and review at least every 10 years a Scottish national parks policy statement to be approved by the Scottish Parliament. The policy statement should set out broad policy direction in relation to national parks, including a vision and the outcomes that are sought. The framework would ensure transparency and require consideration of local support and public engagement.

My amendments 209 and 211 seek to reverse the change that the bill will make to how the national parks and other bodies are to interact with national park plans. Currently, under the National Parks (Scotland) Act 2000, bodies are required to “have regard to” the plans. My amendments seek to maintain proportionality and flexibility in public bodies’ obligations by continuing to require them to “have regard to”, rather than “facilitate”, national park plans.

I seek to ensure that there will be evidence-based policy development through an independent review of existing national parks before any new designation is made, and that review would be established via my amendment 214. The amendment seeks to add a section to require a review of the effectiveness of the existing national parks to be carried out before any designation is made for the creation of any new national park.

Will the minister take an intervention?

True.

I do agree with that. In some ways, that is what I wanted to probe the minister on. I think that I will still move my amendment, but I will discuss the matter with the minister separately, too. The crux of the issue is that there is a lot of wording and new stuff coming forward that stakeholders are really concerned about. This is about making sure that the triangular relationship between the Government, NatureScot—as the regulator—and the stakeholders works in practice. I imagine that we will come back to that as we move forward.

I will turn to my amendment 223. The bill sets out changes to the Deer (Scotland) Act 1996, including grounds for intervention relating to damage by deer. It sets out the conditions that NatureScot will have to believe are satisfied before intervention can take place. It then uses the wording

“This ground is met if, in relation to a particular area of land”.

My amendment 223 seeks to change “in relation to” to “on”. At the moment, the bill uses both terms. I believe that my amendment would introduce better consistency to the drafting of the bill and that use of the word “on” would narrow the reference.

My amendment 224 is similar to amendment 223. It seeks to introduce better consistency to the bill.

My amendment 330 is consequential to my amendments 223 and 224.

Section 13 of the bill adds to the Deer (Scotland) Act 1996 grounds for intervention due to nature restoration. It states:

“This ground is met if, in relation to a particular area of land, deer or steps taken or not taken ... are likely to, prevent or reduce the effectiveness of work, a project or natural process”.

My amendment 226 seeks to delete

“, a project or natural process”

and replace it with the words “or project”. As far as I am aware, “natural process” has not been defined in previous legislation, and I therefore do not believe that it would add anything beyond what would already be covered under “work or project”. Again, I am trying to make sense of the wording for practical application of the law.

My amendment 227 is a consequential to my amendment 228.

As I have mentioned, section 13 of the bill adds to the Deer (Scotland) Act 1996 grounds for intervention due to nature restoration. More fully, it states:

“This ground is met if, in relation to a particular area of land, deer or steps taken or not taken for the purposes of deer management are, or are likely to, prevent or reduce the effectiveness of work, a project or natural process that ... preserves, protects, restores, enhances or otherwise improves the natural heritage or environment”.

My amendment 228 seeks to replace “enhances or otherwise improves” with the words “and enhances”. I am concerned that allowing intervention on the basis of improving the natural heritage or environment is problematic as there is no clear baseline against which such improvements can be measured. Removing the phrase “or otherwise improves” would ensure that deer management remained aligned with the established purposes of preserving, protecting, restoring and enhancing the environment, while avoiding ambiguity over what constitutes environmental improvement.

I completely agree that our speaking after this session would be hugely valuable, minister. I am raising the points now, as is normally the case, because they are very technical, but I would welcome that discussion.

My amendments 238 and 244 seek to remove the requirement for a control scheme to

“register in the Land Register of Scotland or (as the case may be) record in the General Register of Sasines”

and replace it with a requirement to “publish on SNH’s”—NatureScot’s—“website”. That change would ensure increased public accessibility. Furthermore, removing the scheme from the title sheet would ensure that it is not legally tied to the land—I raised a concern about that at stage 1—and bring it into line with other parts of the control scheme’s operation, which are also set out on NatureScot’s website. The amendment simplifies the process by making information more accessible and transparent.

Section 19 amends section 10 of the Deer (Scotland) Act 1996, on “Emergency measures to prevent damage by deer”. The ability to undertake such measures currently applies when deer are

“causing damage to woodland or to agricultural production, including any crops or foodstuffs”.

The bill proposes to add “natural heritage” and the “environment” to that list. My amendment 245 seeks to delete the word “environment”, which introduces broad, overarching objectives that reflect national rather than local priorities.

My amendment 232 acts as a replacement for Alasdair Allan MSP’s amendment 39, which seeks to expand the rights of occupiers to “prevent damage by deer”. In doing so, amendment 39 would create a significant safety issue for the landlord and the occupier, as well as any employees of either party.

The issue—

I will explain that in what I am about to say, I hope—but I can come back to the member on that.

The issue stems from the fact that the occupier can kill deer without notifying the landlord, provided that they have reasonable grounds to believe that the killing of deer is necessary to prevent damage. That could conceivably lead to a situation in which agents of the landlord and of the occupier are undertaking deer management or other land management activities on the same piece of land at the same time, at significant risk to the safety of both parties. My amendment 332 seeks to retain the expanded rights to kill deer on

“arable land, improved permanent pasture ... and land which has been regenerated so as to be able to make a significant contribution to the productivity of a holding which forms part of that agricultural land, or enclosed woodland”.

However, for other types of land, the amendment would make the exercising of such expanded rights conditional on authorisation from NatureScot. NatureScot would give notice of the authorisation to the landlord, and the occupier would thereafter be subject to standard authorisation conditions, including notification requirements, which I believe occupiers carry out at present.

My amendment 333 would add a new section to the bill and to the Deer (Scotland) Act 1996. It would require ministers to establish a financial assistance scheme for deer management activities. My amendment seeks to underscore the importance of providing meaningful incentives in support of sustainable deer management. It is widely considered by stakeholders from across the deer sector and beyond that financial incentives are essential, particularly in a lowland context. My amendment builds on existing pilot schemes in the central belt, Loch Ness and the Cairngorm national park and would put in place a statutory duty to incentivise sustainable deer management.

Finally, I turn to amendments 310 and 311. As currently drafted, the bill will establish a new code of practice on deer management, which we discussed widely during stage 1. However, we have no idea at present what will be in the code, and it will not be made clear until after the passing of the bill. My amendments 310 and 311 would mean that all parts of the bill relating to deer could not come into force until the new code has been publicised.

But which stakeholder is it? My understanding is that most stakeholders originally thought that there would be a much greater list of options.

We have been talking about this for years, minister, and there are four options a few months before we are going to put this into place.

If we were to vote against it today, that could be a problem.