Chamber and committees

We would want to ensure that, as far as possible, we are not developing the plans and doing everything in a silo. It makes sense that those things align.

Bylaws are in operation in Loch Lomond and the Trossachs national park. It is important that our parks have the ability to deal with particular issues. I know that the committee heard evidence from the national parks about that. We are considering a bylaw on fire management for the Cairngorms national park, given some of the significant issues that we have seen with wildfire, which is an increasing problem. Our parks having the ability to address such problems is important and powerful.

Where the bylaws have been operating in Loch Lomond, they have been effective. The measures that we are looking to introduce through the bill will help the enforcement of those bylaws to be even more effective than it is now. Loch Lomond and the Trossachs national park is trying to do things in relation to water safety, which is a key concern, and being able to address some of the problems that they have seen has been important.

The ability to introduce bylaws is very much a beneficial power that our parks have. The measures that we are looking to introduce in the bill can only strengthen that.

I do not have much to add at this point and am happy to move straight to questions if the committee would prefer that.

No, and it should not be interpreted in that way. It is not meant to come across in that way or as being hierarchical. As with the four broader aims, the overarching purpose of the national parks is to collectively achieve the aims together.

The bill does not change the Sandford principle, which applies under section 9(6) of the 2000 act—if there is deemed to be a conflict between the aims, the first aim is the overriding one. However, in relation to the list in the proposed new subsection, the aims are not intended to be hierarchical, and one aim should not be prioritised above another.

I completely appreciate your arguments about creating a list. I have touched on that point myself, because it can become about what is not there. It is important to at least reference biodiversity and climate change, given all the work that is happening in that regard. I am more than happy to take away the views of the committee.

By their very nature, the aims can never be all-encompassing and capture all the actions. It is about trying to strike the balance between being general enough that they can cover a lot of that activity and not being too specific, but I am more than happy to hear views.

It is important and, as I have already set out, it is about facilitating the implementation of the plan. I do not know how much stronger it could be made without there being wider implications on other public bodies and the potential for conflict with their duties. As I have said, I do not imagine that that would happen, but there are provisions in the bill that help to deal with that situation. The issues that you reference are more in relation to the planning system, though, which is something that would have to be looked at in relation to our overall planning legislation, as opposed to measures through the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill.

Notwithstanding the time that the process took to designate our first two national parks in the Cairngorms and Loch Lomond and the Trossachs, which you outlined, I would say that the current process has been significant. I do not think that the Galloway National Park Association has been arguing that it has been a quick process. In fact, I remember meeting representatives of the association when I was first appointed as a minister, in 2018, and I note that it has been building its campaign over the intervening time.

In 2021, we set out that we were looking to establish a national park. We had a parliamentary debate in 2022, in which there was broad parliamentary support for establishing another national park, and many members were telling us to do that as quickly as possible and to designate more than one national park.

The process that was established was intended to be community led, and it was consulted on at various points, so it is not necessarily fair to suggest that it has been a rushed process. The steps that were taken at each stage to consult and to get the appraisal criteria right were all very important.

You have raised the really important point that, although the process to designate a park is clearly set out in the National Parks (Scotland) Act 2000, the process of how to nominate is not outlined in the act at all. We had tried to develop and bring forward a process that would be built from the bottom up and that came from communities themselves.

To be perfectly honest, the whole purpose of approaching it in the way that we did, and the way that NatureScot went about its consultation, was not to go in with a fixed idea. We want the national park to be built by the communities in Galloway. As I also appreciate, however—and as was picked up in the Scottish Community Development Centre report—not having such an approach makes it harder for people to take a view. If people felt that they were against a national park, they were less likely to engage in other questions about what its shape could be or to consider alternative proposals. It is important to mention the Scottish Community Development Centre report, because it brings out some of those issues and challenges.

I did not want to go to any community and just say, “This is the model.” We would then have had accusations that we had come to impose something on people. It was a matter of getting a balance and saying to people, “Do you want this in your area? You can help to design it.” I absolutely appreciate that that approach comes with difficulties, but that was our reasoning for setting about things in that way.

There are probably quite a lot of lessons to be learned from the process. I do not think that all of them would require a legislative fix, but if the committee thinks that that is needed, I am more than happy to hear the committee’s view.

The independent assessment has made recommendations on the engagement process and how, if we should seek to engage again, we could improve on that. That is important—we need to take that into consideration.

As I outlined to Mark Ruskell, it has been beneficial to have the flexibility to design a process for the nominations. However, I am more than happy to take on board members’ views if they think that any particular areas need to be addressed.

I would be keen to hear more detailed views on which part of the process should be changed, because the process to get those nominations was very much designed to try to get that support.

Another organisation supported that nomination process and supported local groups in those areas in undertaking the wider consultation and engagement work to discuss the proposal. I would be keen to get clearer views on which part of the process should have changed or how we could have gone about it differently. As I said, the process was very much designed to take a bottom-up approach that did not impose the proposal on anyone.

It was important to say to communities across Scotland, “If this is something that you want in your area, come forward, engage and let us know,” rather than saying that the Government would choose an area and tell communities what would happen.

There is that wider piece, which relates to Mark Ruskell’s earlier point, about what a national park looks like and means, and how it can be different. It is not about having a one-size-fits-all approach across the country. There is flexibility to design something that suits local needs and to have better messaging around that.

The process that we have established over the past few years is about trying to get community support, but we must look back and see what lessons can be learned from it as well as from the reporting process.

It is important that we recognise and reference that, as well as having thriving communities, people as individuals are important. If there are views to the contrary, I am more than happy to hear them, but it is about communities and the individuals who live in them. It is important to identify that.