Hansard

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I refer members to my agricultural interests in the register of members’ interests.

Before I turn to the subject of this debate, since this will be my last speech in the Parliament after almost 17 years, I hope that the Presiding Officer will allow me to thank her and her staff and all the many others in this Parliament, from SPICe to the security staff, the official report, the facilities management helpdesk, the information technology team, the posties—especially Robert—the cleaning and catering staff and all my own staff members, especially Douglas Pattullo, and the Conservative press and research unit for the excellent support and help that they have given me over all these years.

I thank my wife Emma and my six wonderful children—Sibylla, Sarah, Alexander, Violet, Rosanna and Daisy, four of whom were born during my stay in this Parliament—for their patience and forbearance, sometimes of my bad moods, during the time that I have been an MSP. They have been my rock and I will always be very grateful for their love and support.

I feel sad to be leaving the Parliament after 17 years but excited at possible new avenues. As Jim Paice said to me the other day, “It’s better to go when they’re asking why you’re going rather than when you’re going.” [Laughter.]

I wish all the new MSPs who are elected on 5 May every success in representing the fine people of Scotland—particularly the Highlands and Islands. Many of the people in the Highlands and Islands live difficult lives on the edge, in places of incredible beauty but sometimes great hardship because they are difficult places in which to make a living.

I remain concerned about some of the rhetoric that has come from the Scottish Government’s supporters during the process of the land reform bill, many of whom I am sorry to say seem in need of a reality check. The Scottish Conservatives have always argued that community ownership can and does play a positive part in land management; indeed, previous Conservative Governments have introduced good legislation in the area. The well-known Highland author Jim Hunter, whom Mike Russell mentioned earlier, said to me publicly that the Conservative Party record on land reform was better than that of any other party in the United Kingdom but the fact remains that the vast majority of private landowners contribute significantly to the Scottish economy and there are many examples of good practice and significant investments being made that are helping to sustain jobs, provide affordable homes and boost economic growth in often fragile and remote rural communities.

Anyone who works in the countryside knows that the costs of maintaining land and estates in good order are significant; drainage, fencing, upkeep of buildings and cross-compliance issues are all practical costs. In many cases, those costs would fall on the public purse if ownership was transferred from individuals, which must surely be considered when decisions about sustainable developments are being made.

The Scottish Government needs to work with private landowners in just the same way as it would work with private industry anywhere else and recognise the huge contribution that they make to Scotland’s economy. It is also vital that landowners and tenants get on—what we want is a reform that causes that to happen on all sides. A better environment for doing agricultural business is surely what we should be looking for.

One of our other key concerns throughout this process has been to avoid doing things that would damage the tenanted farming sector and reduce the amount of land that landowners are willing to let out to the tenanted sector. I share the genuine concern of landowners, the NFUS and many tenant farmers that the Scottish Government’s decision to force through changes in relation to the relinquishment and assignation of 1991 act tenancies will simply decrease confidence in the sector and reduce the number of tenanted farms that are made available.

My colleague Alex Fergusson was completely right to argue that the relevant section of the bill should be removed entirely and that such matters should be deferred to the next session of Parliament to be dealt with in a separate bill, because getting the decisions on agricultural tenancies right is too important to be rushed through in this way. More time and a serious, detailed debate are needed if a working environment is to be produced in which both sides are happy to do business with each other. That is how the land that produces the food will be improved, which is the vital thing about the whole agricultural industry.

Although there might be different ideological views around the chamber, uppermost in all members’ minds should be the need to make good, workable legislation that is understood, and not just for the benefit of lawyers. Increasingly over the past session, there has been a move to reduce the amount of detail in bills and to put more onus on secondary legislation and regulations. That tendency is never plainer to see than in the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill. In that regard, I welcome the recent comments of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee about the bill’s provisions and note the concerns from across the chamber about the delay in the Scottish Government’s response to the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee’s stage 1 report.

The process has been driven not by evidence but by politics, and the defeat of the minister’s land reform motion at the SNP conference has had more impact on the content of the bill than the years of debate, discussion and evidence taking that have taken place. Surely that is a poor indictment of how the SNP makes law for Scotland. It would be a poor indictment for any Government to follow those principles, for they are wrong and they ignore the advice that is being given by the industry, which must be a bad thing.

On the reintroduction of rates for shooting and deer forests, I think that the Scottish Government is pushing ahead with a move that can only hurt an important section of the rural economy, and one that is of particular significance to my region of the Highlands and Islands. The stage 1 report said that the case for that change had simply not been made and warned about the impact on deer management as a result of the loss of game managers, gamekeepers and stalking jobs. Those jobs matter. It is deeply unfortunate that the Scottish Government has ignored the committee’s report and is ploughing ahead with a move that I am sure it may well regret in future years as the consequences of its actions and their effect on rural businesses become clear.

There are some elements of the bill that we support, but because of our very serious concerns about key parts of it, especially those on agricultural tenancy reform and the reintroduction of rates for shooting and deer forests, we cannot support the bill and will vote against it tonight.

Before I depart the stage, if you will allow me, Presiding Officer, I would like to pay tribute to Alex Fergusson, who has borne the brunt of our opposition to the bill, and all the work that that has involved, on his extremely broad shoulders. Time will tell on who was right and who was wrong, but he has done his job magnificently, and I hope that he will buy me a drink later on. [Laughter.]

I have enjoyed my bouts with too many members to name: Mr Lochhead, Mr Wheelhouse, Mr Gibson, Mr Thompson, Mr Allan and Mr Russell are just some of them; I cannot name them all.

So, farewell Scottish Parliament and godspeed. [Applause.]