I am trying to ensure that, if a notice is served, both sides know that it has been served and it is responded to. I do not think that it should be assumed that a notice has been received and that consent has therefore been given.

Amendment 223 is consequential on amendment 220.

Amendment 221 would remove the requirement for a landlord to provide reasons in writing for the refusal of consent for a tenant’s improvement. Amendment 222 is related and would remove the 70-day period within which a landlord must give a tenant the reasons for refusal. Instead, a landlord would need to give the reasons for refusal within a “reasonable” timescale if a tenant asked for reasons to be given.

Amendment 225 would require the bill to include a definition of

“sustainable and regenerative agricultural production”,

instead of ministers being obliged to define it in regulations. I am probably not the only farmer who is looking to understand what that means.

Amendment 99 would provide that consent must be required for certain improvements listed in new schedule 5 to the 1991 act, on pages 61 and 62 of the bill. Such improvements include irrigating land, making or planting osier beds, making or planting short rotation coppice and so on. The amendment would clarify that consent must be required for those improvements, because they would result in a considerable change to the land usage.

I move amendment 220.

I have listened to the cabinet secretary ask members not to vote for my amendment 220 and those that relate to it. I do not yet understand why it is automatically assumed that, if you post a letter, you receive it. That does not always happen, and it does not stipulate whether the notice should be sent by letter, email, recorded delivery, special delivery or any other means.

At some stage, if notice has been served and the other side wishes to challenge it, it will be on the assumption that whoever posted the notice has to sign a bit of paper to swear that they have delivered the letter. That is not a way to go forward; the way to go forward is to have a form of recorded delivery, so that people can see that notices have been delivered, which each side would understand. For that simple reason, I do not accept the cabinet secretary’s comments.

I agree with amendments 226 and 227, in the name of the cabinet secretary. They go a long way towards addressing some of the issues that I raised in relation to amendment 99. I might be in a position to reconsider moving that amendment, having heard what the cabinet secretary has said.

I press amendment 220.

I totally agree with that. How is it that every time we have a land reform bill, we have another case? I remind the member of the Salvesen v Riddell case, which caused the same problem because ill-conceived legislation was passed as land reform purporting to do the right things. I believe that neither of those cases can be laid at the door of the landowners, but that the responsibility is on the Scottish Government, because it totally failed to understand what it was passing.

I am not surprised that the cabinet secretary supports Martin Whitfield’s amendment. I am sure that they worked together on it, and I will be delighted to withdraw my amendment 196. However, I cannot agree with the cabinet secretary’s suggestion that all the other amendments, except amendments 89C and 89G, will build on Mr Whitfield’s amendment, so I urge the Parliament to vote against them. I will not press amendment 196.

Amendment 196, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 197 not moved.

Amendment 198 moved—[Mairi Gougeon].

Amendments 215 to 219 would ensure that the compensation for resumption is on the basis of the value of the land if sold with vacant possession for its existing agricultural use rather than the hoped value if the land was sold for development. The reason for that is that people enter into agricultural leases to use the land for agriculture, not in the hope that there may be some development at a later stage that they can benefit from. To use that valuation would further undermine the confidence in the tenanted farming sector. I refer the Parliament and the cabinet secretary to my remarks in group 23 on the decline of the sector and the 29 per cent decline in holdings with rented land.

Amendment 96 would insert further amendments to ensure that the valuer of land that is being resumed under the 2003 act tenancies is specifically qualified to determine the open market value as determined by and laid down by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors rather than simply appearing to the landlord to meet the requirements to be a valuer. That is about ensuring quality.

Independent bodies all agree that the provisions on resumption of land in the bill are a mess and not fit for purpose. The cabinet secretary will be aware of a letter sent to her on 3 October by the heads of independent bodies including NFU Scotland, the Agricultural Law Association, Scottish Land & Estates, the Central Association for Agricultural Valuers, Scottish Agricultural Arbiters and Valuers Association and the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. That letter details the drafting problems in this section, and stipulates that compensation should be in relation to the capital value of the land itself, not what it was rented for. The Scottish Tenant Farmers Association is the only stakeholder that has not offered support to the letter. It is not right that one organisation should have the power to veto all the other organisations’ sensible views.

I turn to other amendments in the group. Amendment 328, in the name of Tim Eagle, allows flexibility for the landlord and tenant to reach an agreement, which is exactly what, in my mind, the bill should be encouraging. Amendment 338 is also a sensible amendment, and if the Parliament agrees to it, it will pre-empt my amendments 217, 218 and 219, and I am quite happy with that. However, if the Parliament does not pass 338, I am afraid that I will have to move my amendments individually. I will not comment on Emma Harper’s amendment 347, except to say that it adds little to the process.

I thank the cabinet secretary for that. Amendment 320 is specific enough. It clearly refers to

“what proportion of land in Scotland is moorland”.

That is a straightforward question. A quick survey would find that out. It is also possible to find out

“the rate of moorland habitat loss, broken down by region”.

The cabinet secretary has talked about people doing a survey of peatlands. Surely, we can also survey

“the land uses that are replacing moorland”—

we do that in the agricultural census in most years—and

“the consequences of moorlands being replaced with other land uses.”

I believe that it is possible to do it. It may add another burden on the Government, which it may not want to agree to, but I do not see why the amendment is not specific enough or detailed enough to enable such a vital record to be kept.

I press amendment 320.

I want to move the amendment, Presiding Officer, but I was wondering whether you cared for me to move amendments 100 to 104 en bloc, to make voting simpler. However, if that is a complication, I will just move amendment 100.

I take exception to Mr Greer’s final comment. I sat through the whole of stage 1 and in fact ensured that I was present and able to discuss the bill with the Government at stage 2 having just been released from hospital. I made sure that I was there for all those events. Not once during stage 1 did Mr Greer come to the committee to raise these points. It would have been respectful of him to turn up to the committee at stage 1 to raise them and I would be happy if all members did that at committee.

Sorry, Presiding Officer. I pushed my request-to-speak button but unpushed it when I heard the arguments that were put forward, which were persuasive. I did not think that I could add to them.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. The app would not connect for me, but I would have voted yes.

I am disappointed to hear the words of the cabinet secretary. I am a tenant under a 1991 act tenancy, and I agreed to the terms thereof. That is what I signed up to; that is what I was prepared to commit to; and I am happy with those agreements. I have a very good working relationship with my landlord.

As far as the other tenancies provisions are concerned, I do not want to stop the market, but my feeling is that the cabinet secretary, by making these changes, is certainly going to stymie it. I have given the cabinet secretary the evidence of what has happened in the past few years, which is all due to retrospective changes to the law. It is rather like going off and agreeing with somebody a contract to do something and then for the person providing the goods for the contract to be told that somebody can come along and change it. That happens in no other business; it is actually bad for business, and in this case it stops tenants getting on to the land.

I do not accept the arguments that the cabinet secretary has made. I want to create a vibrant sector, which I think will be achieved only when we stop fiddling with the legislation that has already been passed.