Chamber and committees

I will also speak to Mercedes Villalba’s amendments . Do you want me to do that at the same time, or do you want me to leave it to the point at which she will have come in?

Amendment 345 would expand the bodies that can report breaches to include community bodies, such as community controlled bodies as defined in the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, and community councils. Amendment 346 includes the Crofting Commission and grazing committees as bodies that would be able to report breaches of land management obligations.

Amendment 347 pertains to breaches in land management plans. The bill allows for fines to be imposed for breaches of obligations. A large landowner could choose to pay the fines and continue to breach their obligations. The bill does not include further sanctions in that situation. Amendment 347 sets out the parameters for the process of compulsory purchase after five successive years of breaches.

I was finished, but I will.

That is fine.

Steps need to be taken to simplify and clarify the pre-notification of sale. My amendments in this group aim to achieve a longer timeframe for the prohibition of sale, the introduction of de minimis considerations and the setting in statute of a timeframe for section 34 letters, all of which would be crucial changes to the bill.

The prior notification mechanism is based on communities using the late application process in the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003. That process has not been successfully used since 2017 and the introduction of additional criteria in the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. That has led to the Scottish Government interpreting late applications as being applicable only when a community body is already in possession of a section 34 letter and is actively working on a community right-to-buy application. That is simply unrealistic.

The proposed mechanism in the bill appears to circumvent those issues. However, it may be helpful for the Scottish Government to issue guidance that it will accept applications from community bodies that do not meet those unrealistically high criteria. If the prior notification mechanism is going to be agile and effective, the Government needs to accept that interested community groups are unlikely to be community right to buy compliant ahead of time and that they may or may not have a clear public record of interest in the land. It is especially problematic when there is a monopoly landowner who has held the land for many years and there had seemed to be little likelihood of the land coming on the market.

Amendments 350 and 352 to 354 would simply create a single universal 120-day prohibition on sale rather than a 70-day prohibition. Community right-to-buy processes currently take many months and communities need a reasonable period of time to progress their applications. Amendment 349 would insert a 28-day timeframe for the Scottish Government to issue section 34 letters. That will be of assistance, but communities need a longer prohibition of sale period to allow time for them to do the administrative and fundraising work that is necessary. Amendment 351 would expand the list of organisations that will be notified of a land transfer to include community councils, development trusts and other community-focused bodies that ministers are aware of.

I support Mercedes Villalba’s amendments 120, 122, 125 and 133. I also support the amendments that have been lodged by Michael Matheson and Mark Ruskell. I cannot, however, support Tim Eagle’s amendments in this group.

I move amendment 349.

Compulsory purchase will always come with a price; it is a purchase. Money would be exchanged, and the rights of whoever held a standard security would be met—there would be money to repay a loan for a piece of land.

It is just that they can do that on land that they tenant, not on land where excess numbers of deer are having an impact. I am not saying that properly—what I mean is that the deer move about and, if they are not caught in the act, the occupier cannot do anything.

Would the bill benefit from the inclusion of a collection of target-setting criteria such as those that were included in the climate legislation, which could set the parameters for those targets? That was suggested by Open Seas.

If we bear in mind that delegated powers already exist in this area, why is a new, single, overarching power needed to enable Scottish ministers to modify Scottish EIA legislation and the habitats regulations?

So, it is about co-ordinating the other pieces of legislation.

Having a separation of powers is a well-known way of working—the person in charge of policing something does not make the regulation. If someone does not agree with what is being proposed in discussions that have been carried out in an open forum, how can people trust them to regulate the implementation of that in a transparent way? You say that the NatureScot members on the panels are public officials and they are bound not to work in a detrimental way, but they are still human beings. That is why we tend to have that separation of powers, whereas it feels like there is a real conflict in the proposal that is before us. It is fine if everything is working and everyone is in agreement, but you would not need those panels if everyone was in full agreement. How do you prevent the conflict?