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Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 12 March 2025
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Displaying 1986 contributions

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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]

Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 4 February 2025

Mark Ruskell

That was an interesting exchange. I note that the bill does not cover the register of controlled interests, but maybe it should—who knows?

Land management planning is obviously a way of delivering openness and transparency. Perhaps I can come to Sandra Holmes first with this question. I am interested in hearing where community consultation is working well, where it is not working well and what the barriers are. After all, what lie at the heart of LMP production are good liaison and good consultation with communities. Can you offer reflections from your perspective on how that can be improved?

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]

Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 4 February 2025

Mark Ruskell

If that work is already happening under other, more national, strategic plans, is it not just a case of bringing everything together so that people who come along to the village hall, for example, can see where the public interest is?

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]

Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 4 February 2025

Mark Ruskell

Rob Carlow, do you have anything to add? There is a question about how Gresham House Forest Fund VI LP, as an entity, books a village hall and tells people what it is doing. What is good consultation in that regard?

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]

Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 4 February 2025

Mark Ruskell

Okay. Related to that is the transfer test. The original recommendation was for a public interest test. You will have heard our earlier witnesses talk about the advantages of that, rather than a transfer test being applied to the seller before sale. May I have your reflections on that? I go to Sandra Holmes first.

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]

Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 4 February 2025

Mark Ruskell

Yes. Clearly, the land management plans need to reflect the aspirations of people who want to hold land and wider landscape-scale recovery.

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]

Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 4 February 2025

Mark Ruskell

I want to get your reflections on the ministerial powers over lotting decisions. I will go to Tara Wight first, as she had quite a few reflections on that issue in her written evidence, so it is obviously a concern for her members.

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]

Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 28 January 2025

Mark Ruskell

Leaving aside your comment about the cost of engagement and following the logic of your argument, would that save you money? Instead of having perhaps a speculative housing development on an area of green belt, you would have been able to say, “The community does or does not want this. Therefore, we have done all the consultation. We can go straight into consulting on a land management plan that is driven largely by the local place plan and what the community wants.” I take the point that you did a process that took £70,000 for a couple of days—that is eye-watering—but are you saying that the local place plan sets the agenda and you feed off that and that is a bit simpler?

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]

Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 28 January 2025

Mark Ruskell

Thanks. Dennis Overton, you want to come in. Could you also cover the specific Land Commission proposals?

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]

Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 28 January 2025

Mark Ruskell

Why, do you think, has the Government gone down this particular route? I think that the original consultation suggested a public interest test on the buyer rather than the transfer test on the seller. I am curious. Do you or any of the other witnesses have views about why the Government has gone down this route, and why it rejected the original proposal?

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]

Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 28 January 2025

Mark Ruskell

You see what is in the plan as a summation of work that is already on-going.