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Having done a separate aquaculture session, I can say that a lot of work is going on on it, at the moment. To address it in particular, I note that we published our “Vision for Sustainable Aquaculture” over the summer. The committee will see that, as part of that, we included enhanced emphasis on climate and the environment as well as on community benefit. We want to ensure that we see more benefit going to communities across Scotland who host aquaculture.

There are also a number of key commitments in relation to, for example, going beyond the regulatory limits when it comes to waste discharge and how we can collect that waste and use it better as part of our circular economy. There are a number of new commitments.

It is also important, as well as considering regulation, to recognise the innovation in technology that is going on in the aquaculture sector to address some of the key challenges that it faces. I do not necessarily agree that there is not enough regulation, but there are a number of bodies involved in regulation of aquaculture and we know that we need to make improvements in that regard. That is where the work that we are taking forward from the Griggs review is really important.

We have the Scottish aquaculture council. A key thread of its work at the moment is in relation to consenting; we have a consenting task force. It is not about there being less regulation, but about there being more efficient and transparent regulation of the industry and how we make that work more effectively with all the key bodies. We hope to introduce a pilot very soon so that we can see what improvements can be made to the system. A body of work is being done.

Crown Estate Scotland also has a key role to play in relation to biodiversity. I talked about how it is part of the environment and economy leadership group in relation to climate change. It is also part of the Scottish biodiversity programme, which is about engaging with stakeholders on the biodiversity strategy. It is starting to embed that in the work that it is doing with its farming tenants, which we are seeing. CES has an environmental grants scheme that is for getting rid of invasive non-native species and doing all sorts of other things in relation to biodiversity. There is always more that can be done, but it is doing a lot of work in that space, which will continue as we look forward to the biodiversity strategy and delivery plan.

We obviously want to see diversity and to ensure community ownership—whether of land, buildings or other assets—in every part of Scotland. The 2021 report on community ownership in Scotland highlighted that the greatest increases in community ownership were in the Highlands and in Argyll and Bute. You rightly identified Falkirk as an area where there is no community ownership of assets. We need to tease that out and get to the bottom of what the issues might be.

It is also important to remember that a number of things must align to enable community ownership. The relevant community bodies have to be in place and there must be the right motivations, along with the right piece of land or the right asset. It may be that all those pieces have not quite aligned, but we need to tease out what the barriers might be and look at how we can address those. What matters is how those projects come together and the overall motivation and alignment.

It is also important to highlight that information about any decisions that are made is publicly available on the Registers of Scotland website for anyone who wants to see why some community ownership plans do not go ahead.

Yes, that is right. Land reform and taking forward the future land reform bill fall within my portfolio. Obviously, there are cross-cutting interests between the different portfolios, but land reform falls to me.

It is important to remember that land reform is a journey. You are absolutely right that it is 20 years since that policy was commenced. However, we are intent on taking that further, which is why we will be introducing another land reform bill, as we previously committed to do. We want to see more diversity of land ownership in Scotland and more community ownership.

Something that came out of one of the previous reports from the Scottish Land Commission was that, at the moment, the right to buy for communities in Scotland is seen as a means to an end when it should be something that is considered normal. It is something that we should be proactively encouraging communities to do and that communities should proactively be looking at.

As ever, there is always more work to do, but I think that the land reform bill that we will be introducing will take us a step further on that journey.

The review of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 will potentially flesh out some of that as well. I am sure that we all have examples from our constituencies or regions of where the community asset transfer process has not quite worked out for a variety of different reasons. It is important that that review is undertaken, so that we can see how the process is working on the whole and whether there are any lessons to be learned.

Absolutely. That is a really important point, which was recognised in the changes to the Scottish land fund that were implemented back in 2016. Up until that point, there were mainly rural considerations, but it is about recognising that critical issues remain in urban areas, too.

I come back to the point that you made about the increase in land values and the impact that that has on our ability to support communities with increasing land prices. Our main mechanism for support is the Scottish land fund, which we have increased this year to £11 million. Our overall aim is to double the funding to £20 million by 2026, because we want to ensure that we assist as many communities as possible. We want to ensure that we fund as many community ownership projects as we can and that there is a spread of projects. It depends on individual applications, but we have funded projects to a significant extent through the land fund, so we have that important mechanism.

Other fundraising efforts, such as community fundraising, are also important, and private donors have had a hand to play in that regard. We can provide other support. For example, we fund the community ownership support service to provide advice and assistance. It is about ensuring that we maximise advice and guidance and our funding opportunities. We have to continue to monitor the situation closely, so that we enable communities as far as possible to have ownership opportunities.

That is no problem. I understand that I still have to formally reply to the committee. It was to ensure that we had continuity through the appointments process and because we were looking to appoint new commissioners to the role.

There is a lot in that question so, if I forget a point, please come back to me and remind me.

On the NatureScot pilot, it is necessary that we have private investment in carbon sequestration. We cannot reach our climate targets or do what we need to do to address the biodiversity crisis that we are in without private investment. We recognised that point in our national strategy for economic transformation, and the importance of private finance has also been recognised globally through the global biodiversity framework that was agreed at the 15th conference of the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity—COP15.

Given the sheer scale of what is required, we cannot achieve the investment that is needed through the public purse alone with the public money and resources that we have available. However, if we recognise the need for private investment, it is critical that what we set out and want to achieve is values led and based on specific principles that are important to us in Scotland. There is also community involvement. We need to ensure that that is all in place.

The NatureScot pilot offers a valuable opportunity to consider those points and to ensure that we have a values-led, integrity-based system of private investment. I do not see that work impacting land values, because the pilot involves working with existing landowners to see how they can make it work. The pilot is happening in two parts of Scotland. It is a pilot, so we will monitor it closely—that is really important—and ensure that we learn from it as we go.

As I said in my previous response, we can see how we can make impactful interventions through the additionality that we introduced through the woodland carbon code, and it is interesting to see that work follow through in the market insights report.

Such investment is important on the whole, but we need to ensure that we manage it correctly and in a fair and transparent way that involves communities. That can be an issue, so we need to ensure that our communities feel part of the process and that they see the benefits from private investment.

On the point about whether that work contradicts other areas of policy—I think that that was the point that you raised—I do not see our policies as contradictory; if anything, I see them as complementary. We have the interim principles for responsible investment in land and our land rights and responsibilities statement, and all that sets out that we need diverse ownership and more community ownership. Our values are very much aligned in that regard. I do not see any contradiction in our policies in relation to what we have set out.

Through that period of change, it is important to have continuity rather than wholesale change in the commission. George Burgess, do you want to come in?

Let us look at those applications in particular. Even though the community right to buy was part of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, it came into force in 2018, so it has only had a few years to bed in. It is important to look at those different applications and, of course, every application is assessed on its own merits. The three applications were ultimately unsuccessful for a variety of reasons. In two of them, the landowner was doing work to the land periodically, so it could not be classified as neglected and abandoned. In the other case, in the end, a negotiated transfer of the land was facilitated and funded through the Scottish land fund. Even though the transfer did not go through the process that we are talking about, the mechanism was still there. Ultimately, when it comes to land transfer and acquisition, we would like it to be done through negotiation and agreement.