Seòmar agus comataidhean

Could a trigger mechanism be put into the bill on that topic in particular, so that it is not left hanging for lack of evidence and there is a clear pathway? We all know that ecosystem health and recovery is hugely important. It would be nice to put a target on it. If we do not have the data yet, when could that be?

Is there any point in signing up to the global biodiversity goals for 2030 and 2045 if those are not reflected in legislation? The Government seems to be saying that the 2030 goal is lost and that we will do what we can through biodiversity action plans and strategies but we have no chance of meeting that target. It also seems to be saying that we might meet the 2045 target but we should not put it in legislation, because that would bind the Government to action that is beyond what we can actually achieve.

I am trying to understand the thinking behind that. Does it make sense to have such a target if we cannot meet it? If we have such a target, why not put it in legislation?

Rhoda Grant raised the issue of invasive non-native species. I can barely remember this, but I think that INNS came up in 2004, in the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Bill. In fact, I might have lodged an amendment on the issue, back in those early days. The issue is getting worse. I have become aware of NatureScot’s powers to access sites, emerging issues around the expansion of Sitka spruce into native woodland restoration areas and growing issues around a pheasant population that is exploding. Those were not necessarily huge issues 20 years ago, but there are now big issues to do with INNS that could restrict our ability to restore ecosystems. Would you be open to looking at those issues in the bill? It feels like this is an opportunity to make a change, given that the previous bill that considered INNS was in 2004—a long time ago.

Okay. If there is a way to introduce some agility into the bill now to sort an issue in future, that would be worth having a conversation about.

Section 13 adds “nature restoration” as a ground for intervention in deer management. However, control schemes under the section 8 powers in the 1996 act have not been used until relatively recently. Do you envisage the position changing under the bill, with more use of section 8 powers?

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on using the powers outlined in the International Criminal Court (Scotland) Act 2001 to prosecute nationals and residents of the United Kingdom residing in Scotland who have committed war crimes. (S6O-04749)

What we are now seeing on a daily and hourly basis coming from Gaza is evidence of war crimes being committed by members of the Israel Defense Forces. Given that the Metropolitan Police’s war crimes unit has received a dossier of evidence that accuses 10 British citizens of committing war crimes, including the targeted killing of civilians and aid workers, what action can the Scottish Government take to ensure that the provisions of the 2001 act are followed through and ensure the safety of our communities when we potentially face war criminals living among us?

Populating the debate and explaining examples is a really good way to proceed. The farm that you describe sounds like a great farm. It sounds as though the farmers already have a plan for what they want to do in the future, including with regard to peatland, and they have a really clear idea about where they are going.

Surely it comes down to the format of the land management plan and the associated guidance. If it was a case of consulting on the land management plan or any access arrangements and their future farm management plan, it sounds to me—because it is a professionally run farm with a farming family at the heart of it—as though all the information is already there. Therefore, a land management plan could be a fairly simple thing to pull together and perhaps the subject of a really exciting conversation with the local community about how it can support and feed into what Cora Cooper and her farm are attempting to do.

Ariane Burgess sends her apologies. As members know, she is the convener of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee, and stage 2 of the Housing (Scotland) Bill is concluding in the committee today.

I will speak to amendment 310 and other amendments in the group. We are all aware that Scotland is very much an outlier among many of our European neighbours in that ownership of land is hugely concentrated, and this bill delivers the next step in land reform. However, any land reform legislation must deal with private property rights, so it is crucial that the process is underpinned by the concept of public interest. That is a widely used term in Scottish and United Kingdom legislation, with more than 200 mentions in primary legislation, including existing land reform legislation on community rights to buy. The concept of public interest is also widely accepted in international law. It forms an integral part of the protection of private property in article 1, protocol 1 of the European convention on human rights, which says that

“No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest”.

The Parliament and the Government can curtail that right in particular circumstances, provided that those are set out in law and that the curtailment is in pursuit of a legitimate aim and is proportionate. In many forms of legislation, those circumstances are determined by a public interest test. In this legislation, questions of addressing the public interest in the ownership of land have been inexplicably avoided, with a transfer test and lotting decisions being determined by the impact of the specific landholding on community sustainability, a concept that implicitly deals with the public interest but which remains quite poorly defined and which has no apparent legal precedent. Centring the public interest rather than community sustainability would be a far stronger legal position and would be likely to establish a clearer precedent to avoid future legal challenge, as research for the Scottish Land Commission has made clear.

That raises the question of why the Government has not explicitly engaged with public interest considerations, despite the SLC’s recommendations and the fact that the Government’s consultation was clearly framed in relation to a public interest test. As it stands, the bill provides little clue or definition as to what the relevant public interest considerations are in the ownership of land. The bill needs to consider the public interest in the sale, ownership and management of land.

Amendment 310 seeks to place public interest considerations in the bill. That will ensure predictability, transparency and coherence for the landowners who will be producing land management plans and potentially engaging with a transfer/public interest test. If the amendment passes, landowners will produce LMPs based on public interest considerations that would also underpin any assessment if they were to buy or sell land over the threshold. On behalf of Ariane Burgess, I thank Community Land Scotland for its support in preparing the amendment.

To rewind a little, amendment 49 from the cabinet secretary aims to create a definition of a “contiguous” holding, which addresses evidence that we heard at stage 1 that a holding might have a railway line running through the middle of it and therefore might not be seen as contiguous. I appreciate what the cabinet secretary is trying to do.

In seeking to amend amendment 49, I am replacing the suggestion of using 250m as the definition of “contiguous” with the figure of 10 miles. That goes back to the cabinet secretary’s comments on what people understand as being nearby or within an area. It is important that landholdings that belong to the same owner and have boundaries within 10 miles of each other are treated as contiguous. I think that most people who live in those communities would see such holdings as being broadly contiguous as those are holdings of nearby land that those people want to have a stake in and want to have a conversation about with the landowner. The switch from 250m to 10 miles would address cases where multiple landholdings within communities are being bought up by one owner and are effectively being managed as a single entity.

A number of witnesses told the committee about the example of the Taymouth castle estate and the Glenlyon estate, and the issue was also raised at a town hall meeting that we attended in Aberfeldy. In that example, Discovery Land Company owns both those estates, along with a number of other assets in the community. The company’s proposals have been less than transparent and the feeling in the community—no matter whether people are broadly against or broadly supportive of what DLC is attempting to do—is that people do not really have a full understanding of what the final vision is or what the final plan will be for two estates that are effectively being managed together. That lack of transparency or of a long-term plan is causing a lot of division in the community. I see that in Kenmore and I see that in Aberfeldy. I know that the First Minister, in his role as the constituency MSP, has been asking DLC for its long-term management plan for the area so that people, whether or not they are broadly supportive, can at least know what is coming.

All that we really have at the moment is the planning system, which throws up minor applications for buildings to be built on estates or for the change of use of particular assets but does not really provide a full picture of how a community might change, for better or for worse. The point about what the cabinet secretary called nearby land and the need for transparency is really important.

I appreciate that bringing down the threshold from 3,000 hectares to 1,000 hectares might have some benefit. In that particular case, it would include the Glenlyon estate in the purview of the land management plan, but it would not include Taymouth castle estate or the other assets and land that DLC operates in the area, which still leaves a question about the overall vision and the community’s involvement in that.

Michael Matheson made a point about sites of community significance. I think that that is important, and the bill might have missed an opportunity by not dealing with the urban aspect of that. I hear what the cabinet secretary says about there being more reforms to come, particularly on community right to buy. That is also an issue in the Loch Tay area, because DLC has bought hotels, tourist accommodation, caravan parks and shops, but people do not really know how those are being managed. I hope that, if a version of the amendment were to go through and a land management plan applied to all such assets, that would also provide some clarity on sites of community significance.

Ultimately, communities will judge the bill on whether it improves the situation locally and brings transparency. Right now, my constituents—certainly, the folk we met at the town hall meeting—would call that into question. They do not think that the bill will change the situation locally and provide transparency. I hope that we can agree on something at stage 3—whether that involves a contiguous holding being defined as being within 10 miles of another holding or in some other way—that provides much more of a commonsense understanding of what constitutes nearby land and of the kind of conversations that need to be had on the back of the transparency that a land management plan would bring.

I appreciate the cabinet secretary’s offer to discuss the matter further and to look at the definition again ahead of stage 3. That will be of interest to people on both sides of the debate around Perthshire.