Seòmar agus comataidhean

I am looking for your thoughts on pricing and any other aspects. Do you see it as all the same and part of your business?

Half a cup of coffee.

Do you see a role for that?

We are not entirely sure about the costs of SAF. We have a figure of a £1.50 increase in the price of a ticket and you say that that is hotly debated, but that increase will be spread across all the tickets and seats that you sell. There will not be a focus on particular flights that might or might not use more or less SAF than others.

The key question at the heart of the bill is, does it address the battles over land rights, concentration of power, access and ownership across Scotland that so many communities find themselves struggling with? The amendments in this group are an early test for the Government at stage 3. The concern that I, David Torrance and many other MSPs have raised is a real one that is faced by a real community in Burntisland. Rights of access that have been asserted since Victorian times are being trampled over by Forth Ports, while Fife Council has been completely ineffective at upholding those rights.

That is happening in a green freeport area that we were told would deliver incredible economic opportunities for communities. However, so far, not only have the jobs not materialised in Burntisland, but people are now being fenced out of their own community. They have serious questions about the effectiveness of Fife Council in holding Forth Ports to account, given the deep pockets of Forth Ports and the economic power that it holds locally.

I welcome the fact that members of the community have come to the Parliament today and have engaged MSPs—including, I believe, the cabinet secretary—in conversation about the struggle that they face.

The bill could have been an opportunity to improve the enforcement of access rights, not only for the community of Burntisland but for many more communities across the country.

For example, I have constituents at the other end of my region, in Glen Lyon, who for years have been unreasonably denied access to the North Chesthill Estate. Again, a lack of consistent enforcement action by Perth and Kinross Council has been raised.

In its briefing for the debate, Ramblers Scotland highlights that there is

“a growing concern about a gap between Scotland’s access rights on paper and their effective application.”

Councils, in their roles as access and planning authorities, are, in some cases, proving ineffective at upholding and enforcing those rights, which are long established in common law.

We are now 20 years on from the production of guidance on part 1 of the 2003 act, which was designed to enable councils to operate effectively as access authorities. However, so far, no updated guidance has been produced, despite two decades of real-life experience in working with the act. I therefore ask the cabinet secretary to commit to finalising the review and publishing such updated guidance.

I welcome David Torrance’s amendment 321, which is an attempt to explicitly carve out access to Burntisland harbour in law. It makes an important point.

My amendments 234 and 264, together with amendment 238 in a later group, seek to put in place general requirements for all large landowners to help to facilitate public rights of way over their land and to engage with communities proactively on those specific rights of access. That engagement has been completely absent in the case of Burntisland. I understand from discussion with the cabinet secretary that there are concerns about those amendments and their potential consequences. For those reasons, I will not be moving them.

However, I would like to hear from the cabinet secretary about what commitment she can give to engage with Fife Council on the issue in order to ensure that it is upholding its responsibilities as an access authority and supporting the community, because it has manifestly failed to do so. The Scottish Government must help us to hold Fife Council to account. The amendments are a warning flag that access rights that appear world class on paper are being eroded in Scotland. We need to ensure that enforcement is resourced and that it is effective. In the case of Burntisland, it has not been, and that must change.

I apologise for missing the start of the debate on this grouping.

I return to the point that I made during the debate on group 1: this legislation needs to challenge the imbalance of power that is in our communities, which comes from monopoly land ownership. At the very least, the bill must deliver an element of transparency. However, the experience on the ground is that communities are being shut out of decision making.

John Swinney will know the challenges that are involved in bringing remote and unaccountable landowners to the table to discuss their long-term plans. Discovery Land Company’s plan for Taymouth castle, Kenmore, Glen Lyon and Aberfeldy is a real-world case in which an aggressive developer has enormous power and is buying up the whole area—land, houses, hotels, caravan parks and shops—for a global business that serves an exclusive clientele. If ever there was a case where transparency through land management plans was needed, it is Taymouth.

However, the provisions in the bill offer little to our communities. Most of the parcels of land and assets that are owned by DLC fall under the bill’s threshold for a plan. They are not treated as contiguous even though they are all part of the same business master plan. I say to Edward Mountain that Perthshire is not alone; there are other examples around Scotland, including Anders Povlsen buying up assets around Tongue in Sutherland without transparency and, importantly, community engagement.

The Scottish Government committed after stage 2 to work on a definition of “contiguous holding” that is stronger than 250m. However, no such amendment has been lodged by the Government at stage 3. That is disappointing.

My amendments build upon an existing understanding of what constitutes “local” through the use of an existing statutory boundary: council wards. Using them would mean that landholdings that are held by the same landowner and that collectively exceed 1,000 hectares within the same council ward or a neighbouring council ward would fall under the provisions. Those landowners would have land management plans, prior notification and lotting provisions attached to their landholdings when those collectively reach 1,000 hectares.

I recognise that the amendments that I am proposing will not address the issue of aggregated landholdings that are held by the same, often corporate, entity around the country on a national scale. Gresham House Ltd’s holdings are one example that was raised throughout the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee’s evidence. However, these amendments would be an important step in recognising and addressing the issue of localised land monopolies. This is what we see at Taymouth: a localised land monopoly and a lack of transparency.

I agree with the cabinet secretary that the legislation could be amended. I know that, later, we will discuss an amendment concerning how the definition of “contiguous” could be reviewed in the future. However, right now, there is an opportunity with the bill to fix the situation. That is why I have lodged these amendments. There is an imbalance of power and we need to address that. We should take the opportunity tonight to do so.

Given that my amendment 238 is consequential to the amendments that I lodged in group 1, I intend not to move it.

Amendment 286 returns to the issue that I raised at stage 2 of cases where community bids to purchase abandoned or neglected land are effectively thwarted by landowners who attempt to bring a portion of that site back into usage.

For Edward Mountain and others, I raise the case of Lower Largo and Largo house and estate, which is a historically significant estate in Scotland. However, it has been very difficult for the community to make a case that it falls under the provisions in respect of abandoned and neglected land. The reason for that is that around 5 per cent of the land of that estate has been developed as a horticultural enterprise. People who visit that estate will look around and see the historic buildings and the old walled garden crumbling away, and the land not being used. However, because a tiny postage stamp of that land has been developed, it is, effectively, no longer abandoned and neglected.

The community right to buy in relation to abandoned and neglected land is not working. People are looking at land and buildings every day that they know need to be brought into community ownership, so that they are not neglected, but are invested in and repaired. However, that is not happening—and it is not happening because of a loophole, which I have called the “Largo loophole”. We need to close that loophole; if not tonight, then in future legislation.

I hear what the cabinet secretary is saying about there being legal issues with the amendment and that it is incompetent and everything else. However, it is unfortunate that the consultation on community right to buy that is happening right now was not concluded ahead of the bill being introduced in Parliament. If it had been, we could have reflected its recommendations in the bill; we could have had a proper conversation about the loophole, and a whole range of other issues, and incorporated them in the bill.

I appreciate that we are where we are, and that there is no way to fix the issue right now. However, I am heartened by the comments of the cabinet secretary; just as she is listening in relation to Burntisland, I hope that she is also listening in relation to Taymouth and a lot of the other constituency issues that I have raised throughout the passage of the bill.

Communities do not feel that there is anything in this bill for them. The community in Lower Largo does not see a way forward in relation to addressing a very commonsense issue about its inability to apply for a right to buy on the basis that Largo is abandoned and neglected land.

Communities will now have to wait for a resolution. They will have to wait for the recommendations of the community right to buy review to be published and they will probably have to wait for another land reform bill before they can take action. That is unfortunate and it feels like a wasted opportunity, but we are where we are.

I will take hope from the cabinet secretary’s comments on the issue. I hope that future cabinet secretaries will listen and close this loophole and a number of the others that I have raised this evening.

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the proposed ferry route between Rosyth and Dunkirk. (S6O-05048)

The minister will be aware that, before the summer recess, the First Minister gave assurances that his Government would “welcome the ferry route” and do

“everything that we can to remove any obstacles that are in the way.”—[Official Report, 5 June 2025; c 20.]

Four months on, the biggest barrier remains the border control post designation. I believe that that is resolvable. The ferry route is a significant opportunity for the local community, the Scottish economy and our connection to Europe. How will the Government support the delivery of the ferry route in the coming months? Time is ticking away; we will lose the ferry route and the direct connection to Europe. We cannot afford to lose this opportunity, and I think that the First Minister knows that, too.