Seòmar agus comataidhean

It is good to hear your recognition that this is a contentious issue and that something needs to be done about it. I am minded not to move amendment 138 if I can have some assurance that, as the minister has said, the Government is willing to take forward some level of consultation and get to the bottom of the matter. It is a problem in communities if there is an imbalance, although I recognise that there is history to take into account, as well as familial relationships with places.

However, it is an issue that we need to consider. As I said earlier, there are around 800 people who really want to croft, but they cannot access one. We absolutely need to have more people on the land. As Andrew Thin said, we must transform the way in which we use our land and move from the current suboptimal approach to one that ensures that our land flourishes and thrives.

That is something that I wanted to get a better sense of. Perhaps there is a communication issue here if there are measures in place that people can access, but it is good to hear that you are looking at revising CAGS to make it more accessible for crofters to do the things that they want to do, especially given the big push for the ecological restoration that needs to be taking place across our land. I will keep track of these developments and what you are looking at with regard to CAGS.

Expanding the practice of crofting into other counties in Scotland has been talked about for quite a long time. Can the minister give any assurances about what work might be done in that area? It would be nice to get to a point at which we are not just talking about it but doing some work on the ground.

I appreciate what the minister said about a commitment to do further work, but I am minded to press amendment 154.

I share Rhoda Grant’s concerns. I have not referred specifically to carbon markets, but I would appreciate being part of those conversations, because it is really important that the efforts of crofters on the ground remain. As I said, we need to reward the efforts that people on the ground are putting in, and we need to get away from the extracting of wealth and keep it in the community.

It has already been reflected in committee sessions that the crofting market is running too hot for new entrants, which threatens the future of crofting, and that needs to be dealt with. People who want to be active on a croft by managing the land or producing food are the lifeblood of our crofting communities. In the face of the climate and nature crisis, people producing food for local consumption will be crucial. Restricting decrofting for residential purposes is a must, but we must also ensure that we do not create unintended consequences.

My amendment 139, which I worked on with the Scottish Crofting Federation, states that decrofting orders for residential purposes may be given only in connection with a “rural housing burden”. Such a policy would allow us to maintain stocks of affordable housing in our rural communities, which would slow rural depopulation and ensure that crofting communities can continue to thrive into the future.

You have said that you support Beatrice Wishart’s amendments on the rural housing burden. Can you remind me why you have confidence in those amendments? I have said that I am not going to support them, but I would just like to get some reassurance.

Will the minister give way?

It is important that we encourage crofters to put land to environmental use or forestry. It can be hard to make environmental use pay, but we need crofters and other land managers to put their land to such use if we are to meet our nature and climate targets.

Amendment 140 would extend the crofting agricultural grant scheme to woodland crofts and crofter-led forestry. The bulk of new crofts are woodland crofts, given that they are often established on former Forestry and Land Scotland land. They come with restocking requirements, but the CAGS is unavailable to woodland crofts, as the grants are tied specifically to agricultural activity. Forestry grants are also highly competitive, so it is difficult for crofters to access them, and, even if they do, they do not reflect the reality of the cost of undertaking that activity.

Even when a crofter pursues sustainable and regenerative dual usage, such as agroforestry, planting shelter belts or installing fencing for rotational grazing, they are often rejected for subsidy by some rural payments and inspections division offices because the usage is not deemed to be agriculturally justifiable.

Amendment 140 would greatly relieve that pressure and allow more crofters to explore environmental and other more nuanced uses of their crops. For example, crofters could use their land to meet the demand for native tree nurseries, which would help us to meet tree planting and biodiversity targets. Crofters are already doing that to an extent, but a wider form of CAGS could help more of them engage in that kind of activity.

Amendments 191 and 192 seek to introduce a Government-backed loan facility for crofters. All too often, commercial loans do not match up well with crofting, mostly because crofting is—and should, of course, remain—a regulated system of land tenure. Commercial loans are usually unavailable for land that is subject to Government regulations, and that is also the case when it comes to accessing finance for croft housing or for other large capital investments that crofters might have to make. On the housing front, in particular, a croft house would need to be decrofted to be eligible for a commercial loan—a nonsensical situation that puts such housing at risk of being lost to the wider market. That is especially problematic in the Highlands and Islands, given the overheated market that is being fuelled by second homes and Airbnbs.

If the Scottish Government is serious about halting depopulation, creating affordable rural housing and ensuring that crofting land gets to genuine crofters, we need to enable conditional finance in this space. The crofting house grant scheme, even with the proposed changes, is not providing enough to help those who lack the necessary funds to build a croft house—and all the more so since the Covid pandemic, as building costs in the Highlands and Islands have surged by an average of 5 per cent each year.

I would also mention other investments such as loans for support. We need to acknowledge that crofters need money up front for subsidies such as CAGS, which pays out only once the project in question has been completed. As a result, crofters need favourable Government-backed terms if they are to be able to access those funds. I urge members to accept these amendments, so that we can provide these crucial loans to crofters.

I move amendment 140.

During the committee’s discussion of the bill, there was a good deal of reflection on disputes in rural areas and crofting communities. In our round-table evidence session with stakeholders, I proposed creating a soft-touch mediatory function that could work in a similar way to the successful Common Ground Forum, which was intended to take the heat out of misunderstandings related to deer management and very much did so.

During the evidence session, there was a reflection that members of the Crofting Commission would, in the past, have had people on the ground who helped to resolve conflict, along with their other duties. It appears that that practice died out when the commission faced budget cuts over ensuing years. As we all know, when things disappear, it can be mighty difficult to resurrect them down the line.