Chamber and committees

I think of crofting as a form of agricultural holding, but with different legislation, so I was trying to find out whether anything was different for smallholdings.

Certainly, the new Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Act 2024 looks at “sustainable and regenerative” farming as part of what subsidies will be based on. Information will come out on that.

I wonder whether the environmental leases are geared more towards things such as carbon offsetting. Is that their purpose? If so, will they bind the landowner and subsequent tenants to carry out such things? People sequestrate carbon in order to offset carbon generation elsewhere, and I wonder whether the environmental leases could create an issue whereby somebody has bought 100 years’ worth of forestry on land, for example, to offset their carbon elsewhere. Could those leases be abused in order to do that?

Everyone is looking at me in a very puzzled way.

So there may be a place for environmental leases, but not quite as drafted. The provision needs to be tidied up a little to ensure that some agricultural work can be carried out at the same time as environmental work.

Thank you.

Most of my questions reflect on what we have heard today, and my first is for Martin Hall. When you talked about crofting and smallholdings, you said that they are intrinsically different. I know that the legislation is different, but what happens on that land does not to me appear to be different in practice, although you seemed to suggest that it might be.

So, apart from the obvious difference in legislation, they are similar.

Can I push you a little further on the issue of different leases and the environmental lease? We have had some discussion of how the leases that are in place at the moment might work against environmental good practice, and how that might be seen as not being good husbandry either. Is there any way that, rather than creating a different lease, the bill might change the circumstances for all leases? We could have one lease that covers good environmental practice and sees that as good husbandry. I am reflecting on the fact that agricultural funding is going to be much more reflective of how farmers look after the whole area. Rather than create two separate leases, could the bill be an opportunity to bring all that together?

I, too, thank the committee for carrying out the inquiry in response to a number of petitions, some of which came from my region.

The committee report coincides with the publication of Scottish Human Rights Commission report “Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the Highlands and Islands”. Not so long before that, the Scottish Women’s Convention held roadshows throughout the Highlands and Islands.

Those reports highlight that access to healthcare is restricted for people in rural and island areas, and more so for people without money or the means to travel. The evidence is piling up, and we need the Scottish Government to act.

Many members, including Colin Smyth, talked about the distances that people have to travel, and that comes at a cost. The committee report calls on the Scottish Government

“to set out what actions it will take to encourage development of a more consistent and suitably flexible policy for reimbursement of travel and accommodation costs for remote and rural patients accessing healthcare.”

The Scottish Human Rights Commission said in its report that people were not actually accessing healthcare because of the cost of travelling. The Scottish Government recently published the “Transport to Health Delivery Plan”, which commits to reviewing the patient travel scheme, but there is no delivery date. That scheme was devised in 1996, but the rates have not been reviewed for more than a decade. The Scottish Women’s Convention quoted those rates as being £16 a mile and £50 per person per overnight stay. It said that the average cost of a bed and breakfast at that point was £100.70 and, in peak season, £155.08.

This summer, in our office, we did some research and had a quick look for an overnight stay in Inverness. The cheapest that we could find in a budget hotel was £400, so the £50 does not go very far to access hospital treatment.

Many members, including Carol Mochan and Colin Smyth, spoke about maternity and women’s health. The committee report was based partly around the Moray maternity services review, Rebecca Wymer’s petition on women’s health services and campaigns by keep MUM—maternity unit for Moray—and Caithness Health Action Team.

In Caithness, maternity services were withdrawn because of a lack of paediatric services, but there are no paediatricians on the A9 between Wick and Inverness. Because of the removal of maternity services, women’s gynaecological services have also been removed. The Scottish Women’s Convention talks about the negative impacts of that on women—not only on their physical wellbeing but on their mental wellbeing.

Colin Smyth talked about the mums in Wigtownshire who have done a round trip of 200 miles to access maternity services. The Scottish Government has risk assessed maternity services, but it has refused to risk assess the current model. What is the risk attached to giving birth by the side of a road, in the back of an ambulance? What is the risk attached to the increase in inductions and caesarean sections? Those are medical interventions that are not required, which are being used as a result of a lack of services.

Carol Mochan talked about how we train staff. It is clear that if we train staff in their own locality and give them the opportunity to work there, they will stay, because they will not need to find a house or to change their lifestyle. They will stay and deliver services in their own community. In Inverness, there used to be a really good course that was run by the University of the Highlands and Islands that trained nurses and upskilled them to provide midwifery services, but that was taken away from UHI and moved to Dundee. No one in Highland can now access that course.

Liam McArthur pointed out that the lack of permanent staff in rural and island communities has led to the use of locums, which is hugely expensive. The financial cost is incredible, but there is also a cost in care, because locum practitioners are not able to provide the continuity of care that other people know and enjoy.

No, because the UK Government is making money available to pay the NHS for public sector workers. Sandesh Gulhane’s point is a bit of a spurious one, but good on him for trying to get it in.

Other members have talked about the provision of training for people in rural practice. That is really important. In rural and island practice, it is necessary to have a breadth of service and a breadth of knowledge. However, we train clinicians to provide a depth of service, and we pay them more as they increase their specialisation, rather than paying them more for having a breadth of knowledge.

By way of light relief, I will mention the fact that the research on housing that Tim Eagle referred to as being Scottish Land & Estates research was actually research by my office that Scottish Land & Estates had quoted. It gave me the credit for that, which perhaps Mr Eagle could do in future.

This is a really important debate. The cabinet secretary talked about the national centre for remote and rural health and care collecting data and evidence. We could have given him that—we have been collecting data and evidence for years. What we really need from the cabinet secretary is services.

That all sounds great, but the trouble is that rural housing is being built on the outskirts of Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow, not in rural areas. It will not make one jot of difference unless the Scottish Government changes its categorisation of rural areas.

Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention?