Seòmar agus comataidhean

I simply reiterate the wider point that, while I am to some degree sympathetic to the requirement to tackle the climate and nature emergency, as some people put it, we are an island nation and we cannot make any more land. For me, and—I think—for many people in Scotland, food security is of the utmost importance, and I think that there are risks when we go down the line of starting to give away potentially large swathes of land for environmental reasons. Farmers across the nation are already doing incredible work that brings together food security and work on nature, biodiversity and climate change. That is what I am trying to get across with amendment 183.

Having said all that, however, I will not press amendment 183 or move amendment 487.

Amendment 183, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 487 not moved.

Section 7 agreed to.

After section 7

I declare an interest as an active farmer in Buckie and as a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors—that came up yesterday.

Amendment 223 relates to section 9 of the bill and deals with the extension of the tenant farming commissioner’s functions. I do not intend to move it—it is more of a probing amendment.

Section 9 largely modifies the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016, and the bill seeks to keep reference to the 1991 act and the Land Reform (Scotland) 2003 Act, and to add reference to section 30 of the Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886, which I am sure that you are all very familiar with.

For clarity, section 30 of the 1886 act allows for a sole arbiter to be chosen. It states that

“the landlord and the crofter may agree to accept the decision of a sole arbiter mutually chosen instead of the decision of the Crofters Commission, and in that case any order pronounced by such sole arbiter shall, when recorded in the ‘Crofters Holdings Book’ along with the agreement to accept his decision, be as effectual to all intents and purposes as an order of the Crofters Commission”.

My amendment would delete the modifications that the bill makes to subsection (9) and would, in effect, delete section 30 of the 1886 act. I raise the issue because I have heard concerns from stakeholders that including section 30 of the 1886 act could introduce an absolute right to buy. Therefore, I am looking for the cabinet secretary’s guidance in order to get clarity on the effect of this provision.

My amendment 218 would amend the part of the schedule that deals with “Transfers not requiring notice”, which is paragraph 49.

As drafted, the bill allows ministers to amend that paragraph by regulation—they could make changes to subparagraphs (1) to (4). Those cover a significant number of provisions, which deal with the reasons why a transfer of land would be exempt from providing

“Notice of proposal to transfer land”,

which is outlined in paragraph 48 of the schedule and applies to certain instances.

Amendment 218 would restrict the ministers’ powers and mean that the only change that ministers can make by regulation to paragraph 49 would be to add to the list of

“transfers of land that are exempt transfers for the purposes of paragraph 48”.

My amendment 222 has a similar ambition. As drafted, the bill includes a paragraph in the schedule titled:

“Registration of small landholder’s interest: power to modify provisions”.

It includes a subparagraph that will allow ministers to modify various previous paragraphs. Those powers are too broad in scope and the subparagraph should be more narrowly drafted, which is what my amendment 222 aims to do.

I lodged some amendments to amendment 225 today, which I think that we will discuss next week, and I will not move amendment 226 because my new amendment 543, which we will also discuss next week, replaces it.

In the light of what the cabinet secretary has just said, I will not comment on amendment 227. I will be happy to work with her on the amendment over the summer.

Do you want to speak first?

The issue is quite interesting. I remember that it came up when I was a councillor in 2018, and we had quite a wide debate on it. At one point, I think that there was a proposal from the Government about whether Crown estate management could fall to councils. Ultimately, for the reasons that Michael Matheson has given, we said, “We just cannot manage this.”

In theory, it would be great to have more local involvement in management, but I imagine that the way things stood in 2018 would be the same today, so councils would just not be able to run the proposed approach. Knowledge and experience come from having Crown Estate Scotland in place. I could get behind the amendments in some ways, but the history tells us that, for councils, the proposal just would not be possible at the moment.

My amendments 183 and 487 seek to remove the provisions in the bill that will introduce a model lease. Amendment 487 seeks to delete section 7, on model leases.

Realistically, I do not think that I will press the amendments to a vote, but I have lodged them for a reason, which is that stakeholders such as NFU Scotland believe that the current tenancy structure is sufficient. In addition, the NFUS has expressed a wider concern that the provisions in section 7 could result in the removal of land from agricultural production. I strongly support maintaining land, particularly good-quality land, for agricultural production.

The bill as introduced requires ministers

“to make publicly available a model lease designed for letting land so that it can be used ... for an environmental purpose”

via section 7. Section 7(4) sets out what is meant by “environmental purpose”. However, I feel that there is already scope in legislation for land to be used for a variety of reasons, and I therefore do not believe that the model lease is needed.

I am interested in the policy intent behind amendment 380, in the name of Ariane Burgess, on a model lease for hutting, and in the cabinet secretary’s response to that, as I have some concerns that it could be overly burdensome.

I move amendment 183.

I want to come in on that very point. Presumably, most of us agree that the SPS agreement in itself is fine, but dynamic alignment is a risk. I guess that my question is this: what does that mean? What could the risks be of looking through the looking glass? What are the risks for businesses, farmers or your own members?

Thank you.

I want to follow up on Elena Whitham’s question, and my question is probably more for Jimmy Buchan than anyone else, although I would be interested in whether there is an agricultural product point of view on this, too. To what extent will processors in Scotland benefit from the deal? I note that there has been a 68 per cent reduction in landings into Scotland by foreign vessels. Will there be more products coming to UK processors and then shipped on to Europe because of the deal?