Chamber and committees

I apologise—my enthusiasm is getting the better of me. I will retract what I said about land management plans. What I am talking about is targeting the landowners who do not engage with communities. I am referring to people who are absentee landlords, in the sense that we probably all understand. Because they are not present, there might be issues with tenants on their estate, they might not be working with any of the communities or there might be other problems. I do not know of many examples, but there will be such cases across Scotland.

However, there are many other estates where people can do a variety of activities. I have written down a few examples. There are estates in the Deeside area where you can do sauna and swims, fishing tours and picnics on the hills. That is all happening without those estates having a land management plan in place. Community individuals are coming forward and asking the estate owner, “Can I set up this business?” and they are being allowed to do it.

Did I say that?

That is an interesting question. I want to be slightly careful with how I answer it, because I am not suggesting for one moment that I have all the answers; I do not and would never profess to. My small farm is surrounded by two very large estates, the Crown estate, which is to the west, and the Seafield estate, which is to the east. There has never been a moment when I have not been in contact with those two estates. I have never felt that I could not pick up the phone to the farm manager or the estate manager to have a conversation with them or ask them questions about whether there might be opportunities for renting land, or whatever it might be. I would hope that it is already possible for the vast majority of areas to have those kinds of conversations, so I do not know whether land management plans are really necessary.

I accept the point made by Mark Ruskell and the cabinet secretary in that I suspect that there are examples across Scotland of where what I have described does not happen. I am not saying that I have the answer written down in front of me, for the reasons that I have set out, but I think that there could have been another way that we could have worked to improve the relationship. For example, we could work with the likes of Scottish Land & Estates, who work with those sorts of estates and large farmers all the time, to achieve that. In my mind, the constant need to have large plans is not the way forward.

The simple answer is no, because I do not think that the burden of land management plans on all rural landholdings in Scotland above 1,000 hectares, which is 2,000 hectares less than the original proposals in the bill, is helpful.

I must pick up on a second point. I cannot believe that we do not all dream about being cabinet secretary for rural affairs—that is an important thing to do.

On what my earlier amendments were trying to do, it is all about how we take them here, is it not? I am still learning the process. I was trying to make a bad thing better, but ultimately I just do not support the bill. In fairness, I laid that out very clearly in the stage 1 debate. I do not think that this is the right way to go.

Do you agree with the principle that we probably need some—

Yes.

In the light of the discussion, I will not move amendment 21.

Amendment 21 not moved.

Amendment 315 moved—[Rhoda Grant].

Will you take an intervention briefly?

I agree with Bob Doris that it is all about collaboration. My problem with the £40,000 figure is that it is disproportionate, and I worry that it might be against article 6 of the European convention on human rights. In addition, issuing fines of that amount is quite a big power to give to one commissioner. Do you agree that that may be pushing it? I get your point about collaboration and the fact that we should not have to use that power, but do you agree that that £40,000 figure is a little bit too high?

I have nothing to add, convener. I press amendment 14.

That is what I have tried to lay out. A lot of great work already goes on in communities across Scotland. That does not necessarily mean that it is all written down in a plan. For example, deer management plans are present, and an application for a grant for outdoor access might be written down, so it might be possible to lay that out very easily. Agri-environment schemes would be the same. However, we are talking about an extra imposition that would involve writing everything into a further plan. I do not agree that everyone will be running to their local library to look at such a plan because, for much of Scotland, the work is already occurring on the ground and we would have been better focusing on where that work does not occur, as opposed to putting the obligation on everybody.

There are ways to do that. The changes to deer management that we are looking at under the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill do not impose obligations on everybody. They just say that, where things go wrong, we will look at what we can do, and NatureScot can come in. I am not sure that everyone will agree with me, but I think that such an approach might have been better under this bill. I reiterate the importance of the many good things that are going on out there in rural Scotland. I am worried that, ultimately, the requirement will be a burden, not a help.

I move amendment 111.