Seòmar agus comataidhean

I apologise—my enthusiasm is getting the better of me. I will retract what I said about land management plans. What I am talking about is targeting the landowners who do not engage with communities. I am referring to people who are absentee landlords, in the sense that we probably all understand. Because they are not present, there might be issues with tenants on their estate, they might not be working with any of the communities or there might be other problems. I do not know of many examples, but there will be such cases across Scotland.

However, there are many other estates where people can do a variety of activities. I have written down a few examples. There are estates in the Deeside area where you can do sauna and swims, fishing tours and picnics on the hills. That is all happening without those estates having a land management plan in place. Community individuals are coming forward and asking the estate owner, “Can I set up this business?” and they are being allowed to do it.

Did I say that?

That is an interesting question. I want to be slightly careful with how I answer it, because I am not suggesting for one moment that I have all the answers; I do not and would never profess to. My small farm is surrounded by two very large estates, the Crown estate, which is to the west, and the Seafield estate, which is to the east. There has never been a moment when I have not been in contact with those two estates. I have never felt that I could not pick up the phone to the farm manager or the estate manager to have a conversation with them or ask them questions about whether there might be opportunities for renting land, or whatever it might be. I would hope that it is already possible for the vast majority of areas to have those kinds of conversations, so I do not know whether land management plans are really necessary.

I accept the point made by Mark Ruskell and the cabinet secretary in that I suspect that there are examples across Scotland of where what I have described does not happen. I am not saying that I have the answer written down in front of me, for the reasons that I have set out, but I think that there could have been another way that we could have worked to improve the relationship. For example, we could work with the likes of Scottish Land & Estates, which works with those sorts of estates and large farmers all the time, to achieve that. In my mind, the constant need to have large plans is not the way forward.

The simple answer is no, because I do not think that the burden of land management plans on all rural landholdings in Scotland above 1,000 hectares, which is 2,000 hectares less than the original proposals in the bill, is helpful.

I must pick up on a second point. I cannot believe that we do not all dream about being cabinet secretary for rural affairs—that is an important thing to do.

On what my earlier amendments were trying to do, it is all about how we take them here, is it not? I am still learning the process. I was trying to make a bad thing better, but ultimately I just do not support the bill. In fairness, I laid that out very clearly in the stage 1 debate. I do not think that this is the right way to go.

Do you agree with the principle that we probably need some—

Yes.

In the light of the discussion, I will not move amendment 21.

Amendment 21 not moved.

Amendment 315 moved—[Rhoda Grant].

I have nothing to add, convener. I press amendment 14.

Members will be pleased to know that I will not labour the point, because there has been a lot of discussion on part 1 and we have just agreed to an awful lot of stuff; however, I seek to remove the entirety of it. That is no great surprise—to be fair, I laid that out in my stage 1 argument. I do not agree with part 1 or with the premise of what the bill seeks to do with land management plans. My experiences have brought that about.

It is right to put on record that amazing work goes on in our estates in rural Scotland. We have estates that are actively participating in community societies. We have estates that are giving ground to communities. I know estate owners who are giving housing plots to local young people and key workers in their areas. We have estates that are doing everything possible for agri-environment schemes. We have farmers who are trying new methods such as mob grazing—exactly what we want to see. I am worried that land management plans will destroy some of that.

I take on board Rhoda Grant’s point. As she mentioned, we all know of landlords who do not obey. I agree. As was brought up earlier, in some situations in Scotland—in particular, those that involve absentee landlords—there is no involvement or collaboration with the community. We could have addressed that in other ways; we do not need to impose land management plans on everybody when so much great work is already going on. We are already meeting obligations—I say “we”; I mean that, already, large estates of more than 1,000 hectares are out there meeting obligations on nature restoration, agriculture, outdoor access and so on.

We have figures from an answer to a parliamentary question that Ariane Burgess asked a couple of years ago. If the cost was £15,000 per land management plan—I realise that that is at the upper end—with a 500 hectare threshold, we would be looking at something like a £27 million cost to rural communities for putting the land management plans in place. At 1,000 hectares, we are still looking at a cost of £13.1 million. There is a significant cost to the introduction of land management plans, and I do not think that everyone—

Will the member take a quick intervention?

Can I take a final intervention, convener? I promise I will stop after that.