Chamber and committees

On having a sectoral negotiating body, our briefing papers say that the bill is in the House of Lords at the moment, so it is reserved legislation. It would be better if employment law was devolved to Scotland completely, as that would give us more control over what we do with employment throughout Scotland. If the legislative consent motion is agreed to, what will be the next steps to establish a sector-wide negotiating body?

The bill would not affect a single mum with two kids who cannot go to residential rehab but who is worried that her children will be removed from her. How would the bill support somebody in those circumstances?

I will in one second.

Some feel that they are being frozen out of the benefits and management of renewables, while being expected to thole the presence of all those wind turbines. That point was reflected by Michael Matheson when he stated that communities feel that they are being done to, and not done with.

I will take the intervention now.

Please accept my apologies, Presiding Officer, for not being present at the beginning of the debate.

I cannot help but make at least a passing mention of the history of Norway’s community-owned energy sector—in its case, the entire oil and gas sector, as well as a hefty chunk of hydro. Decades ago, the Norwegians took a groundbreaking decision to ensure that their Government, on behalf of the people, would have strategic ownership of oil and gas developments from the 1980s onwards. The result of that is that, today, the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund is worth more than £1.7 trillion. The biggest debates in Norway’s Parliament are on how much can be spent without overinflating the economy.

At the same time, the UK Government used North Sea revenues to subsidise tax cuts and the destruction of huge swathes of our industrial base. Not for nothing was unemployment benefit known in the 1980s as “oil money”.

Clearly, the days of drilling for hydrocarbons with no regard to the wider environmental implications are gone. However, Norway shows what real community ownership on a national scale looks like, as opposed to having revenues frittered away by a Parliament far, far away. We can take the successful model of Norway but decentralise it and put communities in charge of their own energy destiny, and work with them to ensure that the benefits of the green industrial revolution lie with them, rather than being expropriated elsewhere.

In the south, a number of wind farms are at various stages of the planning process, and it is fair to say that, as we have just heard, none enjoys universal popular support; however, all enjoy some public support. There are different objections to each development. The Sandy Knowe wind farm at Sanquhar in my region has developed a good record of community engagement and action and has worked together with local residents as a matter of normal business. However, I believe that the common thread through all the proposals that are currently on the table in the south is the lack of community involvement and community ownership.

I can see the argument that there are too many wind farms in Dumfries and Galloway. However, I also think that we need to reflect on where we are in relation to achieving net zero, developing a renewables sector and getting communities to benefit from all that. There is not an easy yes-or-no answer when we are looking at how we support our communities and the environment, and how we tackle biodiversity, the nature crisis, the climate crisis, and all that—that is a whole other debate.

Some members will be aware of the goat culling west of Newcastleton, which has caused outrage locally, as the new owners of the estate try to clear the majority of a goat population that has been there for more than a millennium. Oxygen Conservation purchased the Blackburn and Harsgarth estate two years ago, and has made a big play of its plans for rewilding across the 11,000 acres. However, in the middle of its rewilding pitch to the community is buried a reference to building the UK’s biggest onshore wind farm. When I raised with it its intentions for the estate, Oxygen Conservation revised its estimate and said only that there would be a wind farm, not that it would be the UK’s biggest.

I do not necessarily have an objection to marrying up rewilding and large-scale native tree planting with a renewables scheme, but it is clear from all the Langholm locals who have been campaigning against the goat culling actions of the owners that they have not been engaged with properly about the prospect of another wind farm being erected in their back yard.

I do not envy the planning authorities or the Scottish Government in making decisions about wind farms or the infrastructure that supports them. I am proud that we have a Government that takes the transition to net zero seriously, and that has put in place a framework to make that happen.

I do not think that I have time.

Getting the balance between having a national or international focus and hearing the very real concerns of local communities is, at times, a thankless task. That is why I think that community ownership of wind power, and across all renewables, has to be a top priority.

I do not want people to feel that they have lost control of their land and their economic and sustainable development future to corporations from other places that are just greenwashing and providing less than a potential community benefit fund while extracting the maximum profit possible.

Community ownership means the full involvement of the entire community from the beginning of the process: from conception to planning to development. It means the full financial benefit of renewables development flowing to local communities, rather than just a small portion of the income.

Dumfries and Galloway has 47 community or locally owned projects funded under the community and renewable energy scheme. Those are not only wind farms but projects that are harnessing the potential technology of anaerobic digestion and biogas from the agricultural sector, creating the potential to hook up households off the gas grid or to create district heating systems. I am interested in how we can pursue anaerobic digestion to support our dairy farmers across the South Scotland region.

I hope that the £8 million fund established by the Government will grow over the years, empowering communities across the south and the whole of Scotland, and building a future that ensures that our communities and the people of Scotland have a direct stake in, and get a direct benefit from, the net zero society that we are bringing to fruition.

I will be really brief. I apologise, Presiding Officer, I pushed the wrong button.

Does Sarah Boyack think that anaerobic digestion of dairy farm by-products and co-products, which generate a lot of heat, could be part of what we need to look at to support agriculture in getting to net zero?

I thank Elena Whitham for securing the debate. She has outlined well how the Common Ground Forum was set up and how it is working. The debate is also very timely, given that the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee, of which Ms Whitham and I are members, is scrutinising the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill, part of which focuses on updating the deer management legislation.

Deer are a keystone species and help shape our ecosystems. Light grazing can keep in check competitive plant species, allowing plant diversity to thrive. In addition, microhabitats are created when deer disturb ground with their hooves and fertilise the soil with their dung. However, a high density of deer causes problems; indeed, the Wildlife Scotland Trust has said that these “gentle gardeners” can become “metaphorical bulldozers”.

In my South Scotland region, as in other rural areas, we have a specific deer management group; in my case, it is the Galloway and Dumfriesshire deer group. I spoke to the chair of the group yesterday and will be meeting him and the vice-chair on Friday to discuss deer management issues, specifically lowland management needs and the differences with highland or upland needs.

I agree with the deer group chair that deer management is not just a rural issue. We have witnessed more deer in peri-urban and even urban areas, causing damage in residential areas and to gardens. Of course, there are issues on our local roads, too, with larger fallow deer colliding with vehicles, causing severe accidents and damage to those vehicles—or even writing them off.

The local deer group brings together a variety of stakeholders, with the aim of ensuring the safe and sustainable management of our different species of deer to help address overgrazing and to promote biodiversity and a healthy natural environment. People often cite conflict over how we best use and manage the finite resource of land, but when we think about the interests of conservationists, rewilders and the agricultural sector, the fact is that conflict is not always inevitable. We need to find a way of managing and resolving any conflicts that arise and bringing together everyone with an interest in this issue, and the work of local deer management groups and the national Common Ground Forum that Elena Whitham has praised in her motion and speech is crucial to that holistic approach.

One example of joined-up working is happening on Jura and Islay, in Jenni Minto’s constituency, where locally sourced venison is now on the dinner menu at six schools. It is an excellent way of reducing food miles and providing healthy, protein-rich meals, as has already been mentioned. Of course, school meals are free to all students in primary 1 to 5, thanks to the Scottish Government.

This is exactly why the Scottish Government is funding projects such as the larder and chill facility at Barwhillanty near Castle Douglas. The costs to the Government are relatively small—in this case, around £20,000—but the potential benefits to the local community can be huge, including reducing the dependence on meat from further afield, reducing waste and keeping spending power in local communities. It is yet another string to the south’s bow with regard to its reputation for world-leading food and drink, and I want such projects to be extended further across the south. I therefore urge estates and anyone else involved in deer management to get the ball rolling by getting in their applications, so that we can see the innovation deployed on Jura being rolled out to our school students in places such as Dumfries and Galloway.

Capital funding for most pilot projects is aimed at developing the infrastructure for venison processing, storage and support, which is what we need for our local communities to turn deer management from a challenge into an opportunity. That support is also part of the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill that I mentioned earlier and which, if passed, will modernise deer management by implementing many of the deer working group’s recommendations on deer culling at a local and national level. Again, getting the various stakeholders around the table to work together on the issue will be key to striking a balance and ensuring that we promote biodiversity and the natural environment to its fullest extent.

I again thank Elena Whitham for lodging her motion and I commend the work being done in this area by the Common Ground Forum.

It has been interesting to hear everybody’s comments so far. There are issues with the proposed changes to the aims of national parks. Confor’s submission says that it supports

“the clear inclusion of sustainable economic development of communities”,

and Scottish Land & Estates said that the bill

“could more explicitly reference jobs, housing, and the support of rural businesses”.

We have challenges in rural areas and we want to focus on retention, home building and sustainable economic development. I am interested in any views on the proposed changes in the bill to the statutory purposes for national parks. What will be the practical impact of the changes on your sectors? As I named Confor, I will go to Stuart Goodall first.

I would like to ask Sarah Cowie a supplementary question on byelaws. For example, there could be a byelaw to ensure that people put their dog on a leash for six weeks during lambing season to reduce livestock being attacked by dogs that are off leash and out of control. That might be an example of a byelaw that could be implemented in one national park versus another. Might that be beneficial?