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Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 26 July 2025
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Displaying 5973 contributions

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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 18 February 2025

Edward Mountain

It would, especially as carbon credits are usually based on a long period of 50 to 100 years. The applicant would be entering a lease of up to 100 years, which would then, in your word, hamstring someone for the next 100 years. The lease would set out what can and cannot be done. In my mind, that makes it a bit of a questionable activity, and I do not understand it. It would have been helpful for me to have seen a lease in the bill so that I could understand it. Once you start fiddling around with legislation after it has been passed, you distort the land rental market, do you not?

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 18 February 2025

Edward Mountain

I am not convinced, but I hear your arguments. The next question is from Kevin Stewart.

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 18 February 2025

Edward Mountain

I have a couple of further questions. Rent reviews are very difficult; sometimes it is just a case of sitting down to agree them. You have proposed a change in the wording, and I know that the committee is going to write to you, cabinet secretary, about section 13 of the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1991, which, I am sure, you will be delighted about. The bill uses the phrase “similar holdings”, rather than the current “comparable holdings”. Why have you proposed that change, and what is the difference?

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 18 February 2025

Edward Mountain

That is quite tortuous at the moment, is it not? My experience makes me ask whether the bill provides a chance to level the playing field for both parties.

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 18 February 2025

Edward Mountain

I have never seen that working to any extent, but there you go.

Douglas Lumsden has a question.

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 18 February 2025

Edward Mountain

I am glad that you clarified that, because it could have ended up with lots of correspondence coming to the committee. When the Government introduces its crofting reform bill, perhaps it will clarify which of the three acts on crofting we are supposed to be working under, and will resolve all the sump issues that were brought up years ago. It will all be easier, and small landholders will then be able to decide whether they want to become crofters.

We have come to the end of our evidence session. Much to my annoyance, we have skipped over some questions. Cabinet secretary, we will send you those in writing, and I ask that you respond to them fairly quickly. Fiona—if you respond to Rhoda Grant, I ask that you do so through the committee, and we will ensure that she receives the answers to her questions.

We will now have a short break from land reform matters before we start considering our stage 1 report, which I am sure will be a lengthy but interesting process. We will make a start on that in roughly two weeks’ time.

I thank our witnesses very much for their evidence. I suspend the meeting for five minutes.

12:05 Meeting suspended.  

12:08 On resuming—  

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 18 February 2025

Edward Mountain

That was done by the Scottish Land Commission, which has come up with a whole heap of recommendations post the bill’s publication. You listened to the commission before, but you have not listened to it on the bill.

Anyway, there are lots of follow-up questions. Kevin Stewart will be first.

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 18 February 2025

Edward Mountain

One of the things that I have found difficult is that the Scottish Land Commission, which I assume you spoke to before you introduced the bill—you certainly pay it £1.5 million to give the Government advice—disagreed with the proposals and has come up with a whole list of additional evidence. Surely that is not helpful. Surely that evidence should have come in before the bill was introduced. Why do you ignore the concerns that the Scottish Land Commission says that it has had for some time?

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 18 February 2025

Edward Mountain

I am glad that you mentioned the community right to buy. I am sure that we will come back to it, but I note that the findings of the consultation will be disclosed post the next stage of the bill’s consideration, which is hardly ideal.

I go back to the fact that this is our third tranche of land reform legislation since the Scottish Parliament came in, and all of it has focused on rural areas, with nothing on urban areas. Are you saying that all the problems are in the countryside and that there is nothing in urban areas?

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 18 February 2025

Edward Mountain

We move on to questions from Douglas Lumsden.