Meeting of the Parliament 13 January 2026
Yes, indeed, and the bill needs to do something about that. It needs to clarify that the carbon credits belong to the tenant, and that a grazing share belongs to the original croft. Beatrice Wishart talked about how that is not an issue in Shetland, because the way in which conveyancing was carried out, the grazing share always belonged to the croft. We need to make sure that that happens elsewhere.
Finlay Carson and others talked about the three-croft limit, which I think that the committee agreed to because it made sense. However, we also understood that the size of crofts varied hugely. There were some very large crofts, some very small crofts and some crofts that had been subdivided in the past. That was a historical issue. Some crofts were subdivided between family members to the point at which they were not really economic at all. As a rule of thumb, there should be a three-croft limit, but every application needs to be considered on its own merit, especially in relation to the size of the croft that is going to be transferred.
Alasdair Allan talked about abandonment and dereliction, and other members talked about environmental crofting and the crossover there. The minister has already agreed that he will strengthen the bill to make sure that environmental crofting cannot be used to disguise abandonment and dereliction. We also need to realise that there are already crofting laws in place that take a stand against abandonment and dereliction, and we must make sure that the Crofting Commission has the ability to do that.
We must also make sure that people can report that. Earlier crofting legislation made that a duty on the grazings clerk and we knew that that would not work. I am pleased that the bill will take that out, but the legislation should also widen who can report dereliction to make sure that it does not happen.
The future of crofting is important, and we need more comprehensive legislation. That legislation needs to understand that crofting has evolved differently in the different areas of the crofting counties. Beatrice Wishart talked about Shetland and the grazing share area, which shows that to be the case.
Ariane Burgess said that crofting is the “glue” that holds communities together, and that really is the case. We need to make sure that we protect it for future generations.
16:49