Seòmar agus comataidhean

Having considered the circumstances and in response to the damage caused by unconsented activity in the area of the Parallel Roads of Lochaber Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), Scottish Ministers have begun drafting a Nature Conservation Order (NCO). This is being developed in parallel with enforcement action being taken by The Highland Council and Scottish Forestry and an ongoing Police Scotland investigation.

The Scottish Government remains committed to provide £250 million towards peatland restoration by 2030.

Within the scope of the size thresholds stated in the question there are a total of 355 land parcels in public ownership in Scotland. The following table breaks this down by the size thresholds requested.

The review of the community rights to buy will look at legislative and procedural changes that can help make those rights more accessible to communities. How, and for what purposes, communities choose to exercise those rights to buy, is a matter for each community to decide. The review will make sure that those rights can be exercised more easily when communities need them.

The Scottish Government remain committed to increasing the Scottish Land Fund to £20m by 2026. Annual budgets for the SLF are set as part of the annual budget process.

If passed by the Scottish Parliament, the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill will prohibit certain sales of over 1,000 hectares, until Ministers can consider the impact on the local community. Ministerial consideration of a lotting decision and what factors may be expected to make a community more sustainable will be based on the individual circumstances of the landholding and the particular communities in question.

While this assessment will depend on these individual factors, it is anticipated that the assessment of potential contributions to the sustainability of communities would include having regard to high level objectives such as economic development, repopulation, maintenance of populations, regeneration, public health, social wellbeing and environmental wellbeing.

Further information can also be found in my letter to the Convener of Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee: cabsecralriproviding-further-information-following-informal-briefing-on-the-land-reform-bill-14-may.pdf (parliament.scot)

The Scottish Government is committed to an ongoing programme of land reform, working with the powers and resources available to us, to tackle the pattern of land ownership in Scotland. Communities in Scotland now have more options than ever before to take ownership of land and assets. Since 2016, the Scottish Land Fund has approved 300 awards of funding for the acquisition of land and land assets, totalling over £50m, bringing over 24,500 acres into community ownership.

The Land Reform (Scotland) Bill introduced into Parliament earlier this year sets out ambitious proposals that will change how land is owned and managed in our rural and island communities for the better. If passed by the Scottish Parliament, the Bill will prohibit certain sales of over 1,000 hectares, until Ministers can consider the impact on the local community. Potentially, this could lead to some landholdings being lotted into smaller parts if this will support community sustainability. The Bill also seeks to empower communities with more opportunities to own land through introducing advance notice of certain sales from large landholdings.

Short-term settlements from the former UK Government, lack of inflation proofing and reduced capital allocations have resulted in the Scottish Government being forced to take difficult decisions that have negatively impacted our ability to deliver land-based climate change measures such as woodland creation and peatland restoration at the scale required. There is currently no UK Government agricultural funding commitment from 2025.

The UK Government must commit to urgent, meaningful engagement on a sufficient, ring-fenced, multi-year programme funding settlement. The Scottish Government has sought early engagement with the UK Government to work towards a reset in the relationship, with an emphasis on the value of regular engagement and collaboration, while respecting devolution.

The Inter-Ministerial Group for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (IMG EFRA) met on 16 September 2024, its first meeting with the new UK Government and the first meeting since September 2023. It was a positive meeting between Ministers from the Four Nations with an agreement on a shared programme of work.

The current agricultural funding allocation is a historical percentage based on decades old agricultural production figures. We need to come to a position that provides the long-term assurance required for our respective Agricultural Reform Programmes and to meet our shared nature and climate obligations.

Putting in place the remaining fisheries management measures remains a top government priority. We want to achieve this as soon as possible, however developing the evidence based and effective fisheries management measures for over 160 inshore sites is a complex and challenging process.

Statutory social, economic and environmental impact assessments are currently being undertaken for inshore MPAs and we will then undertake a public consultation within the current Programme for Government timeframe. Final fisheries management measures will then be implemented as soon as possible once the consultation responses have been analysed and a final decision on the measures taken.

Preparing for Sustainable Farming (PSF) has received a total of 1964 claims to date for soil analysis with a development payment associated with the first claim, with the following number of claims per scheme year: 607 (2022); 1201 (2023); 156 (2024, to date). As part of the claim submission process, high level data was captured to assess if there has been any barriers to acting on the analysis recommendations, whether or not more or less fertiliser was applied than expected, if variable rate application has been used, and whether lime was required based on the analysis. It is worth noting that from the UK-wide British survey of fertiliser practice, only 37% of the farms included in the survey undertook a standard soil analysis (which measures levels of P, K, Mg and soil pH). Data gathered and lessons learnt have been incorporated into the new Whole Farm plan requirements.