Seòmar agus comataidhean

I think that the Scottish Crofting Federation and the Landworkers Alliance take a different view. They would rather see smallholders sitting within the crofting legislation. Why do you take a different view? What are the reasons for that?

What would be the advantages and disadvantages of going one way or the other? Is there no difference?

Okay. How would you distinguish them? With crofting, there are common grazings. Collective land is managed. Smallholdings are individual holdings. Is that the big difference?

Okay. I am sure that more evidence will come on that. I will leave things there for now.

Your point about land management plans is that regardless of the size of the holding, the plans need to be transparent and proportionate. Is that correct?

The bill contains only a transfer test, but we could also introduce a public interest test, in theory.

There are huge opportunities, with or without the bill, for investment in nature and carbon markets, but do you see the bill as an opportunity to regulate those markets? At the moment, they are largely unregulated and it can feel to some communities a bit like the wild west.

Is that why you think that smallholders fall more on the tenancy side than the crofting side?

I want to go back to Mr Doris’s point about the decision on whether the threshold should be 3,000 hectares, 1,000 hectares or something in between. Is it fair to say that there is something arbitrary about the selection? We know that 3,000 hectares in one part of Scotland could look very different from 3,000 hectares in another part of Scotland and might bring in quite dramatically different sets of issues in terms of management, local communities, opportunities for housing and so on. We live in a geographically diverse country. Putting into legislation that land of a certain size needs to have a land management plan does not reflect the nature of the land.

Why do you think the Government has chosen the transfer test? Were you asked for advice on the matter?