Chamber and committees

I have a quick reflection. Do you agree that, where a larger estate has to produce a land management plan, surrounding smaller landholdings—farmers, typically—would benefit? They would not have to produce a land management plan, but the transparency of a nearby estate would be there, so they could see more clearly the future for the area and how they might fit into that.

Do you not think that the requirement for transparency and to have a discussion with bigger landholders would benefit smaller landholders such as yourself or the convener? Clearly, your land would not be captured by the 1,000 hectare threshold currently set by the bill.

I find myself agreeing with much of what Tim Eagle said in relation to positive things happening in rural Scotland. The committee had a number of visits. For example, we went to Atholl Estates, which is well bedded in with the community, already has active plans on nature restoration, and is doing work on housing, the management of villages and so on. Where that works, it does work. I do not see it as a massive imposition to take that information and compile it in a way in which communities can engage with it.

Ultimately, this is about a conversation. Nothing in land management plans will compel landowners to make a certain decision. All they are being asked to do is to engage with communities. That could be a very positive conversation. It could be about the community thinking about how it can support an estate or a larger farm in its business enterprises and about where there might be business opportunities. Members of the community could say, “Have you thought about small-scale horticulture? Have you thought about a business doing mountain bike guiding or tuition?” There could be opportunities—it is a way of creating a conversation.

That would be an interesting example of whistleblowing within the structure of HIE. Those bodies have a role to play in working with other stakeholders and being able to report a potential breach if they see one. Ultimately, it is up to the land and communities commissioner to make that judgment. All that my amendments would do is say that those bodies can make a complaint where they perceive a breach. It is then up to the commissioner to gather the evidence and decide.

Going back to amendments 412 and 413, I think that cross-compliance on subsidy and statutory consents is essential—the Scottish Land Commission has identified that in its work. A fixed penalty of £40,000, as proposed by Bob Doris, is a useful starting point, but there would need to be meaningful points of escalation to ensure compliance. Landowners frequently access public money for agriculture, forestry or other forms of land management. Granting the land and communities commissioner a means of impacting landowners’ access to that funding will be far more impactful than a fixed financial penalty in more egregious cases. I thank Community Land Scotland for its support in developing the ideas for those amendments.

I support Bob Doris’s amendment 97, but my amendment 97A, which amends it, looks to strengthen the language that is used in one key regard. My understanding is that amendment 97 would allow the land and communities commissioner to follow up in cases of an on-going breach, and proposed section 44IA(3)(d) of the 2016 act would give the commissioner an option to impose a further fine if the breach is not remedied in a specified time. Amendment 97A proposes that the commissioner must issue subsequent fines if breaches are on-going. If we are at the point where fines are being issued and we are at the end of a process, I think that there should be a duty on the commissioner to issue those fines.

Turning to other amendments in the group, I support the cabinet secretary’s amendments that strengthen the commissioner’s role to initiate investigations into potential breaches. Unfortunately, I do not support Tim Eagle’s amendments that would reduce the maximum fine that the commissioner can impose, as that is moving in the other direction from the amendments that Ariane Burgess and I have proposed. We need strong enforcement in the legislation, so the Scottish Greens will be supporting Bob Doris’s amendments, which deliver that. Our amendments will strengthen what he has proposed and go a little further.

On Rhoda Grant’s amendments, I am supportive of amendment 347, which would add a provision for the land and communities commissioner to recommend that ministers issue a compulsory sales order in the event of an on-going breach that continues across a five-year period.

All the amendments in the group look to put in place a proper framework of penalties, as there is concern about compliance going forward.

I move amendment 53.

I think that we are all wound up enough right now.

I would like to press amendment 53.

Okay.

I believe that I have already wound up.

As I have said, I will not move amendment 5.

Amendments 127A and 127B relate to group 3 amendments on the definition of contiguous holdings, which we debated last week. We have had a constructive conversation with the cabinet secretary and I look forward to discussing, ahead of stage 3, how the bill will work on the ground. I hope that, in those discussions, we can agree a definition of “nearby land” that will reflect the need for community consultation. Therefore, I will not move those consequential amendments.

Amendment 26 would require land management plans to include information about how landowners

“engage with communities in relation to the development of the plan”

and how that engagement

“influenced the development of the plan”.

Including that information would support meaningful engagement between communities and the landowner, improve transparency about how that engagement impacted the plan and address a recommendation in the committee’s stage 1 report. I ask committee members to support amendment 26.

I do not intend to move Ariane Burgess’s amendment 334, which sought to do a similar thing by another route. Instead, I urge members to support amendment 26.

Amendments 29 and 2 seek to strengthen the obligations on landowners to increase biodiversity on their land and the restoration of beneficial ecosystem processes. Amendment 29 would remove the phrase “or sustaining” from section 1, leaving landowners to manage land in a way that contributes to improving biodiversity only. It would not create an inadvertent loophole whereby biodiversity levels would be sustained at the current levels, entrenching the status quo and the poor status of Scotland’s environment. Removing the words “or sustaining” would help to ensure that LMPs are forward looking and ambitious. It would encourage landowners and managers to think about how their actions can improve soil health, restore habitats, bring back native species and support the dynamic self-will processes that make ecosystems resilient and productive. It would align with Scotland’s broader commitments to a just transition, biodiversity targets and nature-based solutions to climate change.

Amendment 2 recognises that, given Scotland’s high concentration of land ownership, a relatively small number of landholdings hold huge potential to contribute to the repair of Scotland’s ecosystems. Figures from the Scottish Rewilding Alliance show that, of the 623 landholdings that cover more than 3,000 hectares, just 19 seek to restore natural processes at scale. On many large landholdings, natural processes have been interrupted and held back by human intervention, such as the straightening of river channels and habitat fragmentation.

Amendment 2 would ask large landowners to consider how their land could be managed to restore natural processes though, for example, river re-meandering, native woodland regeneration and natural grazing patterns. Although other policies, legislation and funding levers exist to encourage large landowners to restore nature at scale, having that requirement in the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill would underline the importance of restoring natural processes in responding to the climate and nature emergencies. It would also underline the targets that will be set in the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill. I thank the Scottish Rewilding Alliance for supporting amendments 29 and 2.

In a similar vein, amendment 320 seeks to place a duty on public bodies to set out in their LMPs how they will manage their land for nature recovery. Publicly owned land should lead by example in tackling the climate and nature emergencies, and the amendment would help to ensure that nature recovery is a core stated responsibility. Scotland’s public land provides a major opportunity to restore natural processes at scale. Those areas can act as demonstration sites for rewilding and ecological restoration. Including nature recovery in land management plans would ensure that public land actively supports the return of functioning ecosystems. When it comes to land in public ownership, there is a particular responsibility to ensure that management decisions deliver the greatest possible benefit for the people of Scotland now and in the long term. The amendment would embed the public interest in land that is managed by public bodies. I am grateful to the Scottish Rewilding Alliance and Community Land Scotland for drafting amendment 320 on behalf of Ariane Burgess.

Amendment 395 continues the thread from the previous group about the growing pressures that are being exerted on Scotland’s land market by the rise in natural capital investing. As more landowners might seek to enter that market in the coming years and convert land use to activities such as forestry planting to create carbon credits, we must make sure that that is done in a responsible manner. Both local communities and nature have to benefit from such schemes, and there is a real risk that, in landowners’ hurry to enter the new market, natural capital schemes could deliver little ecosystem restoration or community benefit. The schemes must deliver genuine biodiversity improvements and be transparent and fair. The amendment would require landowners to set out in their LMP how they intend to comply with the Scottish Government’s principles for responsible investment in natural capital, which have already been launched.

Just to be clear, cabinet secretary, will the kind of detail on ecological restoration that I laid out earlier be expected to be in a land management plan, as appropriate to the holding?