Chamber and committees

I do not have much to add, so I will reiterate the points that I have made. I do not support land management plans, as has become obvious. I am trying to ensure that they are as unprescriptive as possible and that we are careful that there is no chance that businesses will have to put commercially sensitive information in them.

I am happy to press amendment 24.

If the convener is happy, I am happy to take another intervention.

I will not take long, but I want to come back on a couple of wee points. Monica Lennon said that there was a contradiction in my position. I do not think that there is a contradiction in what I am saying. I am not the cabinet secretary—although, in my dreams, I could be. I cannot believe that the Scottish Parliament could not have found another way of putting in place a law that would have targeted those who do not do what the cabinet secretary is seeking to ensure that they do, which is to implement a land management plan.

More often than not, I see the Government imposing an ever-greater administrative burden—an example of that is the whole-farm plans in agriculture. That is putting pressure on rural businesses, which they do not need at this time.

Mark Ruskell asked how much more difficult it would be to bring together all the plans that are already produced. Estate offices and agricultural businesses—which might simply have a desk in a shed—are not quiet places. They are already busy. It will be burdensome to pull the information together and to get it out there. The community engagement part of the process will definitely be burdensome.

I appreciate that interesting point. My understanding of being in opposition is that I am here to scrutinise and question the Government. That seems fair. The cabinet secretary has a wealth of advisers behind her who support her in creating and introducing a piece of legislation but, to be honest, I do not have that—I have a couple of people who help me to do this.

The point that you raised related to an early discussion that I had with my colleagues about how we could have a completely different proposal for the bill that would address some of the issues that I have raised, but it became apparent that we just did not have the time or ability to bring forward that proposal. I am now trying to question and scrutinise the Government, and I am saying, “I don’t think what you are proposing here will work.” I am happy to say that on record here; I already said it at stage 1, and I will say it again at stage 3.

To an extent, my hope for rural Scotland, which I think we all agree we are passionate about, is that the bill will work, but I do not think that it will. I think that it will be burdensome, and I do not think that it will improve the good relationships that are already out there.

I thought that this discussion would be slightly quicker than it has been, convener.

Most of the amendments in this group relate to fines and periods of time with regard to the enforcement of community engagement obligations. Amendment 407 considers the commissioner’s decision to investigate; as drafted, the commissioner is able to investigate an alleged breach that is reported to them. If the commissioner is not satisfied that the report of the breach is enough to constitute an investigation, they can request more information to be provided by the end of a period that they have specified.

Amendment 407 seeks to replace that undefined period with a set period of 90 days. As landowners, particularly farmers, need to have clarity and assurances with regard to any deadlines that are set forth by the Scottish Government, it is important that that period be specified in the bill.

Amendment 82 seeks to reduce the level of a fine. I do not favour the stick approach. As the bill is drafted, the commissioner can impose a fine no greater than £1,000 on someone who does not provide information as requested by them. I believe that that is too high, and instead I have suggested a maximum of no more than £500.

I believe that I heard the cabinet secretary say that she supported amendments 408 to 410, 414 and 415, and I thank her very much for that. The bill sets out the conditions for when the commissioner can impose a fine for a breach of an obligation, with the individual

“given an opportunity to make an agreement with the Commissioner”.

My amendment changes the wording from “make” to “reach” an agreement, because I believe that, just because an agreement has not been made, that does not mean that the willingness to reach an agreement is not there, and it should be clear that parties will be penalised only if they do not actively participate with the process.

The bill currently allows the commissioner to judge it not appropriate to give the person who committed a breach the opportunity to remedy it, which is one of the conditions that will allow them to impose a fine. Amendment 411 seeks to remove that part. I believe that everyone should be given the opportunity to explain and engage, and previous misdemeanours should not be used as a reason why a party cannot be given the opportunity to remedy a potential breach.

My amendment 90 also seeks to reduce the level of fines. As drafted, the bill allows the commissioner to impose a fine on someone for breaching their obligations, with the maximum amount that can be imposed currently standing at £5,000. I believe that that is far too high, given that farmers who will come into the bill’s scope are often cash poor, and the figure should be limited to £500.

I do not feel that I could support Bob Doris's amendments 83, 89, 91 and 97 to 100, which impose fines of up to £40,000. That is a massive fine, and it could bankrupt farmers and landowners who might fall foul of these provisions. I would be interested to know how the member can justify such a very large sum.

Amendment 418 seeks to define “community body”. Section 2 of the bill will add procedures for applications to register an interest in land. This amendment seeks to ensure that those who can make such an application are within the legally recognised definition of “community body”. That definition is found in section 34(4) of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, which states:

“A body is not a community body unless Ministers have given it written confirmation that they are satisfied that the main purpose of the body is consistent with furthering the achievement of sustainable development.”

I turn to my amendment 113. As drafted, the bill will allow the prohibition of sale under proposed new section 46B of the 2003 act to be lifted after 30 days. That 30-day period will begin when ministers publicise

“that the owner ... intends to transfer the land”

and

“how a community body can register an interest in some or all of the land”.

Amendment 113 would still allow for the prohibition to be lifted following 30 days, but the 30-day period would begin when ministers receive a request for the prohibition to be lifted under proposed new section 46C of the 2003 act or the owner of the land proposes to transfer that land under section 48 of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016. I am concerned that there could be scope for delay if the lifting of the prohibition is based on ministers fulfilling duties under proposed new section 46D of the 2003 act, which would unfairly prevent the landowner from selling their land. My amendment seeks to prevent that.

Following on from that is my amendment 114. As the bill is drafted, ministers will be required to give notice to a person who has notified their intention to transfer land, under proposed new section 46C or section 48 of the 2003 act, that the prohibition on transferring the land is lifted after a period of 30 days after ministers fulfil their duty under proposed new section 46D. Amendment 114 proposes that ministers should be required to publish the notice to be given under this part of the legislation.

My amendment 116 regards the registering of community interest. Proposed new section 46F allows for ministers to prohibit an owner of land from transferring that land under a number of circumstances. In allowing that prohibition, ministers need to be satisfied of a number of conditions, including that

“there is a reasonable prospect of that application resulting in a community interest in the land being registered.”

Amendment 116 adds the condition that ministers are satisfied that the person noting an intention to register community interest

“would have sufficient resources to purchase the land.”

I believe that the amendment would add protection for the seller by ensuring that those who are lodging a community interest would be able to buy the land. That would avoid landowners being caught in a situation in which sales are delayed when those expressing the community interest would be unable to buy the land.

My amendment 419 would allow ministers to add by regulations to the short list of land that could be excluded from prohibitions as cases are thrown up after the implementation of the bill. I believe that that would add flexibility to the legislation.

My amendment 420 allows ministers to disapply the prohibitions if it is considered to

“be in the public interest to do so”.

I am in favour of a public interest test to some degree being included on the face of the bill. However, I believe that the other proposals that have been made for a public interest test are too wide ranging.

My amendments 421 and 423 would remove references to “composite holding” from the definition of land in section 2. That change follows on from my amendments to section 1. I believe that the definition of “composite” in the bill raises significant problems.

My amendment 422 seeks to increase the land size threshold, which is 1,000 hectares in the bill, under section 2, to 5,000 hectares. That follows on from my earlier amendments to section 1.

My amendment 129 seeks to delete the section in the bill that allows ministers to alter by regulations the period for which a prohibition lasts and the land size threshold.

My amendment 134 relates to amendment 129. Although my first choice would be to delete proposed new section 46L, amendment 134 would ensure that regulations that are made under section 46L do not lead to reduction of the land size threshold.

In a similar way, my amendment 131 seeks to avoid ministers being able to reduce the land size threshold in the future under their powers under proposed new section 46L of the 2003 act to modify section 2 of the bill by regulations.

My amendment 135 seeks to improve consultation. Currently, section 2, via proposed new section 46L, allows for ministers to make regulations to change the time period of prohibition and the land size threshold. Amendment 135 would require them to lay any such regulations before the Scottish Parliament and consult anyone who is considered appropriate when making such changes.

Amendment 24, which is my final amendment in the group, is a drafting amendment.

We were laughing. Sorry, convener.

Members will be pleased to know that I will not labour the point, because there has been a lot of discussion on part 1 and we have just agreed to an awful lot of stuff; however, I seek to remove the entirety of it. That is no great surprise—to be fair, I laid that out in my stage 1 argument. I do not agree with part 1 or with the premise of what the bill seeks to do with land management plans. My experiences have brought that about.

It is right to put on record that amazing work goes on in our estates in rural Scotland. We have estates that are actively participating in community societies. We have estates that are giving ground to communities. I know estate owners who are giving housing plots to local young people and key workers in their areas. We have estates that are doing everything possible for agri-environment schemes. We have farmers who are trying new methods such as mob grazing—exactly what we want to see. I am worried that land management plans will destroy some of that.

I take on board Rhoda Grant’s point. As she mentioned, we all know of landlords who do not obey. I agree. As was brought up earlier, in some situations in Scotland—in particular, those that involve absentee landlords—there is no involvement or collaboration with the community. We could have addressed that in other ways; we do not need to impose land management plans on everybody when so much great work is already going on. We are already meeting obligations—I say “we”; I mean that, already, large estates of more than 1,000 hectares are out there meeting obligations on nature restoration, agriculture, outdoor access and so on.

We have figures from an answer to a parliamentary question that Ariane Burgess asked a couple of years ago. If the cost was £15,000 per land management plan—I realise that that is at the upper end—with a 500 hectare threshold, we would be looking at something like a £27 million cost to rural communities for putting the land management plans in place. At 1,000 hectares, we are still looking at a cost of £13.1 million. There is a significant cost to the introduction of land management plans, and I do not think that everyone—

Can I take a final intervention, convener? I promise I will stop after that.

I completely agree. That neatly ties into my last bullet point. The threshold has been reduced from 3,000 to 1,000 hectares and there was a proposal to bring it down to 500—I am glad that that has not gone forward. We are not just talking about massive multifaceted estates any more; potentially, we are talking about an upland sheep farm.

The discussion has been helpful. As I have said, I am not saying that I am perfect in this, but I feel that we need to support rural Scotland as much as we can and recognise the great work that is being done. Unfortunately, I am concerned by all of part 1.

I press amendment 111.