Seòmar agus comataidhean

You could define regression within the bill.

This is an interesting conversation. I appreciate your putting on record that the aim is not to take away the protections that we have in place but to enable further movement on biodiversity or climate change. The convener made a point about the risk. You keep setting out the four areas in the bill, but if the bill had only one of those, such as net zero or climate, is there is a risk that your Government or a future Government could say, “My aims for climate override my aims for that particular habitat”? Do you see that the approach could be quite broad if, for example, we were talking about onshore or offshore wind?

So, it is purely about that flexibility.

Minister, you are right to say that there is a fair bit of good will out there at the moment. However—and this follows on from Mark Ruskell’s question—we have heard in evidence that there is a bit of uncertainty about the vagueness of the phrase “nature restoration”. How do you intend the guidance to give clarity about what that means and in what circumstances it might be used?

My understanding of the bill is that NatureScot must “have regard to” the code of practice. There have been some queries about whether that is a fair or strong enough term. What are your thoughts on that?

Before I start, I want to touch base on something that Mark Ruskell said earlier. I completely respect that there is quite a wide range of views in the room. I think that it is fair to say, as I tried to lay out in my stage 1 speech, that I am not overly supportive of the direction of travel of the bill. I want to put what I will say in relation to a lot of my amendments into context. I agree with the point that the convener made: it is not so much the ownership of the land but its management that comes into this. My experiences in this field have led me to think so.

My amendment 10 seeks to require ministers to provide guidance on the meaning of “engagement with communities” and to define what constitutes communities in relation to section 1 of the bill. As currently drafted, the bill uses the words “engagement” and “communities”, which both have wide connotations. That leaves the meaning unclear. The wording that is used is rather generic and does not refer to a particular group or geographic proximity. If landowners are to be fined for their failure to consult, then they need to know exactly who they are supposed to consult with. Amendment 10 would require additional guidance to be provided to ensure that that remains clear.

My amendment 390 seeks to remove the requirement in the bill for land management plans to be made “publicly available”. There are three reasons why the amendment should be agreed to. First, it seems inappropriate for commercially sensitive information about individual businesses to be made public. Secondly, a vast amount of information is already publicly available, and the bill as drafted could lead to duplication of that information. Thirdly, landowners, particularly farmers, need assurances regarding commercially sensitive information.

My amendment 18 seeks to delete lines 9 and 10 from section 1, page 2, as they require the owner of land to engage

“with communities on the development of, and significant changes to,”

the land management plan. We do not believe that it is feasible for landowners to consult the community when developing or making significant changes to the plan. We therefore propose the removal of that provision.

As the bill would oblige landowners, through regulations, to engage with communities on the development of and significant changes to a plan, my amendment 391 and the consequential amendment 392 would change the reference to “communities” to

“a community body within the vicinity of the land.”

The current use of the word “communities” is generic. In contrast to other sections in part 1 of the bill, this section requires consultation with the generic term “communities” without reference to any particular group or geographic proximity to the land. That is potentially very wide and vague. Landowners can be penalised and fined significant sums for breaching the duty to consult, so the duty needs to be framed clearly in the bill. I believe that the issue would be resolved by agreeing to my amendment.

My amendment 19 seeks to remove the requirement for landowners to engage with communities when there will be significant changes to the plan. It would leave the requirement to engage with communities on the development of the plan. We are particularly concerned about the responsibility on the landowner to engage with communities on any “significant changes” to the land management plan. We do not believe that it is feasible for a landowner to do that. Although our first preference would be to remove the full requirement, this second option, amendment 19, would remove our biggest concern.

I turn to my amendment 21. The bill requires the land management plan to be reviewed and revised every five years. We believe that it is fair that the plans are reviewed and kept up to date but that there should be greater flexibility in the period for review, given the wide range of landholdings and land uses that will be affected.

It is not entirely clear from the bill what is meant by “review”, and whether that will be a full community consultation. Perhaps the cabinet secretary can set out what the intentions are. I would argue that that should be clarified in the bill.

It is not feasible to review a land management plan every five years. The review process is costly—I believe that the committee was told that the estimated cost of that was £15,000. In addition, the plans are supposed to project the long-term future. It might also be disproportionate if there has not been any significant change in circumstances. We believe that the period should be extended to 20 years.

I note that Rhoda Grant’s amendment 315 seeks to amend the review period of the land management plan from five to 10 years. Although I would prefer the period to be 20 years, we will support her amendment as 10 years is an improvement on five years.

I turn to my amendment 23. The bill allows for regulations that impose obligations on the owners of land, including requiring them to produce a land management plan for that land. The amendment seeks to ensure that a new owner is not required to produce a plan immediately on acquiring the land and that they need not make a plan publicly available until one year after they have taken up ownership of the land. That would ensure that the requirement to produce a plan is not a deterrent to new entrants or a financial burden on new owners. It would also allow the new owner time to get to know the land before being bounced into producing a plan.

My amendment 396 seeks to add to the list of what regulations under proposed new section 44A of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016 impose. It seeks to deal with a situation in which a community body or individual member is acting unreasonably when the landowner is attempting to engage with a community for the purposes of proposed new section 44B(1)(b). It allows for that to be reported to the Scottish Land Commission and for the commission to discharge the obligation to consult with the community under section 44B(1)(b). The amendment seeks to ensure that where the landowner is attempting to follow their obligations and a community, community body or individual is making that challenging, the landowner is not considered to have breached their obligations and is not required to continue to attempt engagement. That would protect the landowner where they have tried to follow through with their obligations.

I turn to the other amendments in the group. Although we support the aim of Bob Doris’s amendment 16 to increase accessibility, we have concerns about cost. I would like to know more, such as how much that would cost and who would pay for the land management plans to be accessible.

We will not support Ariane Burgess’s amendment 311 as it is counter to my amendment 390. We seek to restrict the amount of information that is available to the public as a vast amount of information is already publicly available.

We will not support Rhoda Grant’s amendment 312, which seeks to prescribe the format of the land management plan, as that would add unnecessary extra costs on to landowners and prevent them from saving money by using plans that they might have drawn up for other reasons.

We disagree with Bob Doris’s amendments 17 and 31, which would require that land management plans be published online by a public body. A vast amount of information is already publicly available, and we do not want there to be duplication of that information. NFU Scotland has raised significant concern about making public commercially sensitive information about an individual business. Farmers and landowners need assurances regarding commercially sensitive information and that duplication will not be required.

My concern is about making sure that businesses are allowed to operate in a commercially sensitive environment rather than anything else. I am just picking up on the concerns that the NFUS has already raised on the issue.

We do not support Ariane Burgess’s amendments 313, 314 and 316 as those will make land management plans more onerous. I have lodged an amendment to lessen the burden of their introduction, but those amendments would increase the burden and would act as a disincentive to innovation for farmers and landowners.

We will not support the extension of engagement in Bob Doris’s amendment 20, as that would take us well away from the aims of the bill, which are about community right to buy, and it would make the consultee process too wide and onerous.

I would be interested to hear the cabinet secretary’s response to Rhoda Grant’s amendment 335, on ministers appointing “an independent person” to create a land management plan for crofters.

We will not support Bob Doris’s amendment 33, which allows the commissioner to publish guidance on how owners should comply with requirements that are set out in regulations, as we believe that that provision would cause confusion and overcomplication.

We do not feel able to support Ariane Burgess’s amendment 338, as we believe that it increases the burden associated with the land management plan.

Finally, I am interested in Rhoda Grant’s amendment 340, as there might be instances where a landowner wants to have a single land management plan. I am minded to support that amendment.

I move amendment 10.

I have nothing to add, convener, but I press amendment 389.

I take that point on board. I used the £15,000 figure because I understand that it was brought out during the stage 1 evidence. I am also trying to get across the point that some people, particularly upland farmers, are concerned about the bill’s implications for their agricultural units. However, I appreciate the points that the cabinet secretary has made.

On my amendment 401, the proposed threshold for land forming part of an inhabited island is a single or composite holding that “exceeds 1,000 hectares” and

“constitutes more than 25% of the land forming the island.”

We believe that that land size threshold is too small and that it should be increased to 33 per cent.

My amendment 405 addresses our concerns over the use of the term “composite”. The amendment seeks to require the commission to prepare and publish guidance for the purposes of creating clarity on what constitutes a composite holding. In doing so, the commission would be required to consult appropriate persons.

The bill allows ministers to modify section 1 by regulation, and their powers would allow them to change the land that the ability to impose regulation relates to, and also the persons who may report a breach of obligations. We believe that that power is too wide ranging, and amendment 104 proposes to remove those provisions.

My amendment 105 seeks to prevent ministers from being able to lower the land size threshold in future.

My final amendment in the group is amendment 110. The bill allows ministers by regulation to change the land that obligations are imposed on under section 1. Although our first choice is to remove that power, as set out in our amendment 104, we will look to amendment 110 if amendment 104 is unsuccessful, in order to ensure that the land size threshold that is set out in parts of section 1 may not be reduced in future.

Sorry. I am just enthusiastic, convener.