Chamber and committees

Good morning, everybody. I hope that you all had a restful weekend and are ready for the marathon to come this week.

Amendment 355 seeks to address cases in which a community purchase of abandoned or neglected land is, in effect, stymied by a landowner bringing only a tiny proportion of the landholding into use. I will illustrate that with an example from Lower Largo. In the Largo estate, there is Largo house, which is derelict and abandoned. If you visit the site, you will see that it is clearly derelict and has clearly been abandoned by the landowner.

The site is of historical significance. It includes Wood’s tower, which was a fort that was built in the early 17th century for Scotland’s first sea admiral—it is well worth a visit to see the fantastic and amazing history. The site also includes some of Scotland’s oldest walled gardens.

Having seen that the site has been abandoned and neglected, the community has wanted to use provisions under the community right to buy legislation to take over and restore the site in order to turn it into a wonderful tourism opportunity for the local community. However, although most of the site is clearly abandoned and neglected, about 5 per cent of it has been developed as a horticultural business, and the community believes that that thwarts its ability to buy the land under the current provisions on abandoned and neglected land in land reform legislation.

I have lodged amendment 355 to close the Largo loophole. It would require that at least 50 per cent of a site was brought into use before it was no longer classed as abandoned or neglected. If the vast majority of a piece of land is abandoned and neglected, the commonsense definition of that land is that it is abandoned and neglected, so the community should have a right to register interest in taking it over.

Amendment 355 would close a loophole that has blocked communities taking forward their rights to purchase unused land, and I am interested in hearing the cabinet secretary’s view on that. I recognise that a wider community right to buy review is happening; we have debated that already during stage 2 consideration. The amendment provides an opportunity to close the loophole, and, if we do not do so through the amendment, I am looking for commitments to take that action in another way.

I turn to other amendments in the group. Rhoda Grant’s amendments 356 and 357 look to improve recognition of crofting communities in the community right to buy regulations. I am keen to support those amendments and to listen to the discussion about them. I am similarly supportive of Monica Lennon’s amendment 514 on common good land. I will listen to the cabinet secretary’s comments on that and how the provision can be taken forward. I am not entirely sure what Tim Eagle is trying to achieve through amendment 486, but, again, I will listen to his comments on it. It seems that it would require a review of the community right to buy, and my understanding is that that is already under way in the Government. However, again, I will listen to the debate and offer a few comments in closing.

I move amendment 355.

I simply wind up by asking the cabinet secretary whether the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill could contain more consideration of the duties that are put on public bodies. The Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill will establish targets, some of which will be applied to public bodies. There is a requirement in the bill for public bodies to have regard to national park plans, which will establish targets for biodiversity as well.

I will leave the point with the cabinet secretary that what is happening at the moment is not working. Public bodies are not restoring nature at the scale and to the extent that we need them to in order to meet future biodiversity targets and the objectives that are in the biodiversity strategy. More work is required, whether it is in this bill or in the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill. Perhaps a further conversation with Ariane Burgess might be useful ahead of stage 3 of the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill and ahead of stage 2 of the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill.

I would like to withdraw it.

Amendment 366, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 367 not moved.

Having listened to the debate, I am minded not to press amendment 375 or move amendment 376.

To come back to the cabinet secretary’s point about whether there is a big problem with the use of security declarations, Rhoda Grant and I have both come across incidents in which, disappointingly, the police were unable to take the necessary action to ensure the landowner’s compliance. I would therefore look to the cabinet secretary and the Government to consider whether that is a larger-scale problem. We are now several years down the line from the roll-out of the register of controlled interests, which is an important tool in the box that enables us to build much more transparency about how land in Scotland is owned and managed. Clearly, there are examples of situations where compliance is not happening.

It seems odd that the bill contains provision for a fine of up to £40,000 for failure to produce a community consultation on a land management plan, whereas a failure to declare who is financially behind the ownership of land in Scotland attracts only a £5,000 fine. I understand the difference: one of those actions could result in a criminal conviction. However, in the small number of cases that have come through, we have seen that the likelihood of securing a conviction is vanishingly small. For the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service to even take on such a case would require a lot of specialist research by the police. I do not know whether we would ever get to a point where that might help to secure a criminal conviction.

I am not clear whether such a penalty would be a deterrent against non-compliance but, until there is a bit more review of whether the register of controlled interests is working, we can only guess, because we have only anecdotal evidence. On the face of it, that provision appears as though it is quite misaligned with others in the bill, not just as they stood at stage 1 but as they have changed as we have progressed through stage 2.

Okay—go.

I will not press amendment 469.

Amendment 469, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 470 moved—[Mark Ruskell].

I look forward to further discussions with Ariane over the summer about how we might deliver the policy intent behind the amendment—which is to have a thriving community renewables sector in which communities feel that they are achieving the benefit, so—

The Government has already made a commitment to expand and develop ScotLIS. The service is a living thing—it is not frozen in time. The frustration is that it is not currently achieving its potential. It could be quite a powerful tool in ensuring that, where public money is being invested in land and in public objectives, we are matching that up to the land of Scotland and are able to see the impacts of strategic policy across the whole of Scotland—I hope that I have managed to give some examples of that.

It is good for councils, national parks and the Scottish Government to have that mapping tool, so that they can see where public money is being spent, and it is also useful for landowners who are working at a landscape scale, as they can use it to see where the economic opportunities are. It would be for Registers of Scotland and the keeper to manage a work programme for how ScotLIS could be expanded.

There is an existing commitment to expand ScotLIS, so I am not suggesting something completely new. The digital land and property information service task force recommended using ScotLIS in a range of different ways. There is a frustration that, with regard to a carbon land tax and a range of other policies with which members may or may not agree, implementation relies on having an accurate map database of land across Scotland. We do not currently have that, and until we do, we will always come up against problems if we want to be ambitious in our land policy.

I will leave it there, convener. I move amendment 375.

The area of licensing has been drawn far too narrowly in the legislation and it does not include those areas where raptor persecution is occurring. We have, effectively, a licensing regime that was, at the outset, somewhat dysfunctional. It is important that it covers the area where the crimes are taking place.

I think that the Government acknowledges that this is a problem. It is somewhat embarrassing that, when the legislation was passed, it was widely celebrated among those who work in conservation, who had been campaigning for it for many years. It is a balanced piece of legislation, but this is clearly a loophole. If there is a commitment from the Government to fix it, I will not press amendment 374.

Okay—I will do my best.

Amendment 469 would require the Scottish ministers to establish a community land forum. That would bring together local authorities, public bodies with duties related to housing, land ownership or community development, and other agencies, in order to identify areas of land that could be made available for community housing developments.

A forum of that kind has been recommended by the Scottish Land Commission, based on its analysis of similar processes in England and the Republic of Ireland. Amendment 469 would be the first step. It would require ministers to facilitate a space in which the main stakeholders and community groups with an interest could discuss land for community housing. A more robust proposal would be for a public body to be charged with acquiring suitable sites for community housing and creating a land bank of such sites that could be portioned out, according to recommendations from the community land forum. That would be ideal.

Highland Council has successfully assembled parcels of land through its land bank fund since 2005. We would like to see more local authorities take that approach. Amendment 469 is the first step towards such a process, and I urge members to support it.

I move amendment 469.