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So, apart from the obvious difference in legislation, they are similar.

Can I push you a little further on the issue of different leases and the environmental lease? We have had some discussion of how the leases that are in place at the moment might work against environmental good practice, and how that might be seen as not being good husbandry either. Is there any way that, rather than creating a different lease, the bill might change the circumstances for all leases? We could have one lease that covers good environmental practice and sees that as good husbandry. I am reflecting on the fact that agricultural funding is going to be much more reflective of how farmers look after the whole area. Rather than create two separate leases, could the bill be an opportunity to bring all that together?

So there may be a place for environmental leases, but not quite as drafted. The provision needs to be tidied up a little to ensure that some agricultural work can be carried out at the same time as environmental work.

Thank you.

Most of my questions reflect on what we have heard today, and my first is for Martin Hall. When you talked about crofting and smallholdings, you said that they are intrinsically different. I know that the legislation is different, but what happens on that land does not to me appear to be different in practice, although you seemed to suggest that it might be.

I think of crofting as a form of agricultural holding, but with different legislation, so I was trying to find out whether anything was different for smallholdings.

Certainly, the new Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Act 2024 looks at “sustainable and regenerative” farming as part of what subsidies will be based on. Information will come out on that.

I wonder whether the environmental leases are geared more towards things such as carbon offsetting. Is that their purpose? If so, will they bind the landowner and subsequent tenants to carry out such things? People sequestrate carbon in order to offset carbon generation elsewhere, and I wonder whether the environmental leases could create an issue whereby somebody has bought 100 years’ worth of forestry on land, for example, to offset their carbon elsewhere. Could those leases be abused in order to do that?

Everyone is looking at me in a very puzzled way.

Thank you, convener. I have a supplementary and a substantive question, if that is okay.

A lot of this morning’s discussion has been about land management plans and how they relate to crofting. In a way, a landowner cannot impose on the crofter what the crofter does with their tenancy, and it seems to me that that could be a conflict in land management plans. A crofting landowner might be able to write up a land management plan for only quite a small part of the land that they own, because the rest of it will be out to tenancy. Would any of that impose on a crofter’s agency, or would their rights be protected under the bill? I am concerned that land management plans might interfere with a crofter’s rights.

Moving on to my substantive question, I note that, although previous legislation has given crofting communities a right to buy, we have not really seen that right exercised. Crofting estates have changed hands, but seldom under the crofting community right to buy. I wonder why that is. Is it an issue with the legislation itself, and could the bill provide an answer to that?

So, if the process were simplified, it might be more useful.

Would that not have been an option for the crofting communities on Berneray? It does not appear to have been used, but is that just because it is complex?