Chamber and committees

Is the bill where we should deal with that? Listening to both sides of the argument, it seems a complex matter. Could we deal with it in the bill? We have the ability to amend it at stage 2, so is there something that it would be useful to put in the bill? Or should the matter be dealt with in domestic abuse law, although we do not have a vehicle at the moment in which to do that?

The Scottish Labour Party supports the general principles of the bill, but, like others, including many of the stakeholders who are in the gallery today, we want the bill to go further.

Donald Dewar gave Labour’s enduring view on land reform in a 1998 lecture. He said that change was required “on grounds of fairness” to increase “local involvement and accountability” and deliver “greater diversity” in land ownership because there was

“too much control in too few hands”.

After 17 years of SNP Administration, the concentration of land ownership is getting worse—0.025 per cent of Scotland’s population still owns 67 per cent of Scotland’s rural land. As it is currently drafted, the bill will not change land ownership patterns, nor will it deal with the power that is vested in those who own land to hold communities to ransom.

The purpose of land reform is to empower communities, build economies and retain populations. Those things impact service provision, national and community wealth and the sustainability of the Gaelic language.

Stakeholders are very disappointed with and critical of the bill. They do not believe that it will make any change to communities owning land, nor will it change land ownership patterns.

Central to the bill is the setting of two thresholds in defining “large landholdings”: 3,000 hectares for the requirement to have a land management plan and 1,000 hectares to require prior notification of a sale that might trigger a community right to buy or a potential lotting decision. It is confusing and unnecessary to have different thresholds for different purposes, and it is widely felt that those thresholds, even if unified at around 1,000 hectares, are still too high. A reduction in all thresholds to 500 hectares would keep all crofts and 97 per cent of all farms out of the scope of the bill.

The bill does not include urban land reform. A new criterion to allow communities to register an interest in land of significance to them could be a measured way to trigger urban communities getting prior notification of sales and the right of pre-emption.

The bill will create a new land and communities commissioner within the Scottish Land Commission to oversee the land management plans and make recommendations on the potential lotting of land. The new commissioner will be part of the Scottish Land Commission, but they will be completely autonomous from the commission in their work. That looks ill considered, as the commissioner will lack any corporate responsibility and adequate accountability.

Proposals for a public interest test on land transfers have also been completely ditched. Public interest tests are well understood in law, so to change that and to use a transfer test will risk having the legislation held up in the courts. Labour wishes to see amendments to reinstate a public interest test.

Land management plans will be introduced for landholdings of over 3,000 hectares to enshrine community engagement in large landholdings. That is not cumulative and it is set at a level at which very few landholdings in Scotland will be affected. A fine of £5,000 for not producing a plan will not incentivise compliance. There should therefore be a system of escalation of sanctions for non-compliance.

The bill will allow community bodies to have the opportunity to be informed about certain sales of over 1,000 hectares and will give them 30 days to register an initial interest in buying the land. Communities will get a subsequent 40-day period to get consent to make a right-to-buy application. Those timescales are unworkable, given that it can take the Scottish Government two months to approve the constitution of community bodies that are able to make the application. The 1,000 hectare cut-off threshold again means that very few transactions will be caught in that provision.

The bill will introduce lotting for the first time for landholdings of over 1,000 hectares. Those landholdings may be required by Scottish ministers to be sold in smaller lots rather than as a whole, and the owners can seek compensation if that impacts on the value of the sale. That process appears to be complex with no community involvement at all.

Prior notification of any sale over 1,000 hectares is designed to put a restriction on the secretive off-market sales that have been increasing of late. However, that is a relatively high limit, which means that fewer than seven cases a year are likely to be impacted.

Part 2 of the bill seems less controversial, but there are still issues that need to be dealt with. Partial resumption and compensation need to be dovetailed with a whole-farm resumption, so that there are not any incentives to resume the whole farm, rather than the part that is required by the landowner for development. Where possible, such resumptions should be done in negotiation between the landowner and tenant, with the land commissioner having a role should the negotiations fail.

Many people welcome the new environmental lease, which will allow a move towards using land for environmental purposes. We all know that we need to reach net zero, and we hope that the environmental lease will allow tenant farmers more scope to do that in their holdings. Land management plans and whole-farm plans also need to be dovetailed for the small number of farmers who will need both.

As it stands, the bill is unlikely to bring about any change in community ownership or the desired diversification of land ownership. Urban Scotland is also excluded. The thresholds to define large landholdings are set so high that they exclude most land from the bill’s provisions. This weekend, we heard that Clan Donald Lands Trust is selling its assets and land in Skye. I am unaware of any approach being made to the community ahead of the sale. It is also unclear what difference the bill would have made to the sale and community involvement.

I sincerely hope that that would be the case, but the timeframes in the bill would make it nigh-on impossible for a community with no knowledge that the sale was coming up to act in time. Perhaps the cabinet secretary will reflect on that to ensure that communities have the time that they need.

We will work in good faith with the Government to strengthen the bill in the hope that the consequent act will make a step change in land ownership patterns in Scotland.

The Scottish Labour Party supports the general principles of the bill, but, like others, including many of the stakeholders who are in the gallery today, we want the bill to go further.

Donald Dewar gave Labour’s enduring view on land reform in a 1998 lecture. He said that change was required “on grounds of fairness” to increase “local involvement and accountability” and deliver “greater diversity” in land ownership because there was

“too much control in too few hands”.

After 17 years of Scottish National Party Administration, the concentration of land ownership is getting worse—0.025 per cent of Scotland’s population still owns 67 per cent of Scotland’s rural land. As it is currently drafted, the bill will not change land ownership patterns, nor will it deal with the power that is vested in those who own land to hold communities to ransom.

The purpose of land reform is to empower communities, build economies and retain populations. Those things impact service provision, national and community wealth and the sustainability of the Gaelic language.

Stakeholders are very disappointed with and critical of the bill. They do not believe that it will make any change to communities owning land, nor will it change land ownership patterns.

Central to the bill is the setting of two thresholds in defining “large landholdings”: 3,000 hectares for the requirement to have a land management plan and 1,000 hectares to require prior notification of a sale that might trigger a community right to buy or a potential lotting decision. It is confusing and unnecessary to have different thresholds for different purposes, and it is widely felt that those thresholds, even if unified at around 1,000 hectares, are still too high. A reduction in all thresholds to 500 hectares would keep all crofts and 97 per cent of all farms out of the scope of the bill.

The bill does not include urban land reform. A new criterion to allow communities to register an interest in land of significance to them could be a measured way to trigger urban communities getting prior notification of sales and the right of pre-emption.

The bill will create a new land and communities commissioner within the Scottish Land Commission to oversee the land management plans and make recommendations on the potential lotting of land. The new commissioner will be part of the Scottish Land Commission, but they will be completely autonomous from the commission in their work. That looks ill considered, as the commissioner will lack any corporate responsibility and adequate accountability.

Proposals for a public interest test on land transfers have also been completely ditched. Public interest tests are well understood in law, so to change that and to use a transfer test will risk having the legislation held up in the courts. Labour wishes to see amendments to reinstate a public interest test.

Land management plans will be introduced for landholdings of over 3,000 hectares to enshrine community engagement in large landholdings. That is not cumulative and it is set at a level at which very few landholdings in Scotland will be affected. A fine of £5,000 for not producing a plan will not incentivise compliance. There should therefore be a system of escalation of sanctions for non-compliance.

The bill will allow community bodies to have the opportunity to be informed about certain sales of over 1,000 hectares and will give them 30 days to register an initial interest in buying the land. Communities will get a subsequent 40-day period to get consent to make a right-to-buy application. Those timescales are unworkable, given that it can take the Scottish Government two months to approve the constitution of community bodies that are able to make the application. The 1,000 hectare cut-off threshold again means that very few transactions will be caught in that provision.

The bill will introduce lotting for the first time for landholdings of over 1,000 hectares. Those landholdings may be required by Scottish ministers to be sold in smaller lots rather than as a whole, and the owners can seek compensation if that impacts on the value of the sale. That process appears to be complex with no community involvement at all.

Prior notification of any sale over 1,000 hectares is designed to put a restriction on the secretive off-market sales that have been increasing of late. However, that is a relatively high limit, which means that fewer than seven cases a year are likely to be impacted.

Part 2 of the bill seems less controversial, but there are still issues that need to be dealt with. Partial resumption and compensation need to be dovetailed with a whole-farm resumption, so that there are not any incentives to resume the whole farm, rather than the part that is required by the landowner for development. Where possible, such resumptions should be done in negotiation between the landowner and tenant, with the land commissioner having a role should the negotiations fail.

Many people welcome the new environmental lease, which will allow a move towards using land for environmental purposes. We all know that we need to reach net zero, and we hope that the environmental lease will allow tenant farmers more scope to do that in their holdings. Land management plans and whole-farm plans also need to be dovetailed for the small number of farmers who will need both.

As it stands, the bill is unlikely to bring about any change in community ownership or the desired diversification of land ownership. Urban Scotland is also excluded. The thresholds to define large landholdings are set so high that they exclude most land from the bill’s provisions. This weekend, we heard that Clan Donald Lands Trust is selling its assets and land in Skye. I am unaware of any approach being made to the community ahead of the sale. It is also unclear what difference the bill would have made to the sale and community involvement.

The computer system is flawed, as was highlighted in a damning Audit Scotland report from back in 2017. Policy is now being devised to fit the computer system rather than the system delivering the Government’s policy. How will the minister ensure that policy is delivered? Would it be cheaper to scrap it and start again?

I recognise that, but those catastrophes happen and have really damaging impacts on the industry and on the international reputation of one of our largest exports, so we must do more and foresee the challenges that global warming is bringing.

It was sad to see that the public and media response to the catastrophe caused by the micro jellyfish was to pillory the industry. When there have been on-land farming disasters such as foot-and-mouth disease and, more recently, bird flu and Schmallenberg virus, there has rightly been empathy and care for those who have worked hard to raise flocks and herds and have faced devastating losses. However, there is no such empathy or sympathy for those who work on fish farms—it is almost as though people believe that they deliberately set out to bring that catastrophe on themselves.

When the Scottish Government responded to the committee’s concerns about climate change impacts, it highlighted work on issues that have already played out to a certain extent, but we need to look at future proofing, consider what changes are likely to occur and prepare for them. Otherwise, there will be more catastrophic impacts on the industry in the future.

The report looked at wrasse, which were brought in as a response to the previous committee report that focused on sea lice. Wrasse are a natural way of dealing with sea lice, because they are a type of cleaner fish that eat the lice. The value of those wrasse actually exceeds that of farmed salmon, so we must protect them, because they are doing a job in protecting salmon but are, all too often, simply discarded at harvest time. The committee recommended that a fisheries management plan or other protective action should be developed to stop the overfishing of wrasse and to look after their welfare at harvest time.

We also looked at spatial management of the sea, which is a subject that comes up far too often in the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee. The many competing pressures on our seas are not being managed. Those pressures relate to aquaculture, fishing, leisure and energy transmission and generation, so we need a zonal approach to planning on our seas to ensure that there is room for everybody and that people can continue with their businesses. Another issue that came up in the report was that fish farms should be able to move out of the way of things such as micro jellyfish, but the fact that planning is so cumbersome makes that nigh-on impossible.

The report is clear that the Scottish Government is letting the industry down. If we are to continue to reap the rewards of a world-renowned product, we must get governance and transparency right. The committee has set a deadline for that and has left the door open to return to the topic next year. I hope that the Government will now act to ensure that we do not have to do that.

The Rural Affairs and Islands Committee’s report was difficult to compile, because it represents an appraisal of changes that were put in place following the report by its predecessor, the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee. It was difficult to measure change, because the challenges that the industry faces today are different from those that it faced when the previous report was written. However, we found that there had been no significant change with regard to transparency, regulation and governance. Even though salmon farming faces even greater challenges today, it appears that little progress has been made since the REC Committee’s report.

It is for the Government to improve regulation and reporting, but, time and again, we discovered information that had not been published in a timely fashion. Although that information is gathered, it is not transparently or accessibly available. That feeds negativity towards the industry. I welcome the fact that, in her response to the committee’s report, the cabinet secretary admitted that and agreed to look at how such information could be made more freely available.

There are members of the committee and of the wider public who would like there to be a moratorium on all fish farm development. If they were honest, they would admit that they want to close down the industry altogether, but they forget that fish farming provides benefits. We need food, especially oily fish, which salmon farming provides. In rural parts of Scotland, where such farms are based, there is also a need for the jobs that the industry provides.

Recently, I read in the West Highland Free Press that a company in Skye, Organic Sea Harvest, has stopped farming at two of its farms in Skye, which will lead to the loss of 16 jobs in a part of Skye where local population retention is really challenging. That is the number of people who are directly employed by the company, but I fear that more jobs will be lost downstream in local support industries. In an already overheated tourism and second-home market, in which local people struggle to get a foothold in the housing market, such jobs are essential in allowing them to do so.

From press reports, I understand that the reason why the company has stopped farming at those farms is to do with our slow and clunky planning process, with blame lying at the door of Highland Council and the Scottish Government. We are talking about a small local company that the Government should be supporting, which has fallen foul of a complex and expensive bureaucracy. It is little wonder, therefore, that most of the aquaculture industry is now owned by large multinationals, which have deep pockets and patient capital to see them through the planning process. The situation must change, because those jobs are crucial to our local economy.

Good governance not only is transparent but cuts bureaucracy and makes trading easier, without cutting standards. Good governance also protects our international reputation and the reputation of the fish farming industry. Therefore, the Government is failing the industry and those who work in it by not acting on the concerns.

I was brought up in a rural area, where the arrival of a fish farm provided permanent well-paid jobs that allowed young people to buy a home and stay in the community in which they had been brought up. We need more of that. We cannot simply hand over such communities as playgrounds for the rich, but the lack of good governance structures means that it is close to impossible for small companies to succeed. The planning system sets communities against one another and creates time lags that only those with the deepest pockets can survive.

The industry is also impacted by climate change, but the Scottish Government’s marine laboratories have been all but hollowed out. We need research and development to take place to ensure that the industry is world leading, rather than being left to wither. We saw what a catastrophic effect the micro jellyfish had. What research was carried out to identify that up-and-coming challenge before it arose?

Part of the problem is that it feels a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. No one sees the full picture that we are aiming for and it is all very piecemeal. SSIs on various bits are lodged at committee, but when we highlight issues raised by farmers and crofters, you say, “Oh, but that was discussed at ARIOB and they never said anything.” When we go back farmers and crofters, we discover that they have said things at ARIOB that they have then relayed to committee members in order to try to raise their concerns, which turn out to be huge issues when we are looking at the statutory instruments. Obviously, something is not working. I think that you would agree that some of the issues that have been raised by the committee about the statutory instruments were crucial and should have been sorted out earlier.

If the ARIOB process was working, stakeholders were being heard at those meetings and the department was listening to what they say, we would have overcome the issues. It seems to me that ARIOB is not working and that there is no vision for agriculture in five or 10 years’ time, so people feel as though they are running around like headless chickens, trying to see how their business fits into the various piecemeal aspects of legislation. Surely, that is not the way to work. What can we do about ARIOB to ensure that it works? Is there another mechanism that we can use? What is your vision for agriculture? What will be happening in the sector in five or 10 years’ time?

Can I—

My question follows on from Tim Eagle’s question about the computer system. Last week, we heard real concerns that the computer system was a blocker on policy and that the policy was designed around the system rather than the system being designed around policy. How much of a blocker is it, and what is being done to make sure that it is not?